Sunday Times: Scientists in China Discovered a Virus Close to COVID-19 Seven Years Ago?

Society » HEALTH | July 5, 2020, Sunday // 12:30
Bulgaria: Sunday Times: Scientists in China Discovered a Virus Close to COVID-19 Seven Years Ago? pixabay.com

Scientists in China discovered a strain of virus close to Covid-19 seven years ago but allegedly kept quiet about it after the outbreak.

An investigation by the Sunday Times has revealed the closest "strain" to coronavirus found so far was discovered in an abandoned mine in 2013 and taken to a virology lab in Wuhan.

p:nth-of-type(2)","sizes":[[8,8]],"hideOnSensitiveArticle":true,"relativePos":"after","additionalClass":"in-article","name":"div-gpt-ad-vip-slot","type":"VIP"}" data-gpt-placeholder="" data-response-start="3966.2650000100257" data-type="gpt" data-requested="4364.675000004354" data-google-query-id="COHE8p_nteoCFerJuwgd5igBFw" data-timer-slot-rendered="7092.929999998887" data-rendered-width="8" data-rendered-height="8" data-response-end="10651.465000002645">

The strain saw six men come down with a fever, coughs and pneumonia in 2012 after working in the mine, with two of them sadly dying from the disease.

Four of the men were tested and they came up positive for coronavirus antibodies, with the other two unable to be tested having died from the disease.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has put pressure on China to investigate claims the virus might have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan.

It comes after President Donald Trump said he had a "high level of confidence" that the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after seeing evidence back in April.

The institute is the largest infectious disease lab in the world, and was allegedly carrying out high risk experiment in their attempt to discover what could cause a pandemic.

They were allegedly increasing the infectiousness of coronaviruses as part of their process for finding answers.

The Sunday Times says hundreds of coronavirus samples were collected from around remote parts of China and brought back to the city for testing.

Yet the Wuhan Institute says these experiments were shelved because they weren't a close enough match to Sars.

Nikolai Petrovsky of Flinders University in Adelaide told The Times: "If you really thought you had a novel virus that had caused an outbreak that killed humans then there is nothing you wouldn’t do — given that was their whole reason for being [there] — to get to the bottom of that, even if that meant exhausting the sample and then going back to get more."/Mirror

 

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!

Health » Be a reporter: Write and send your article
Tags: COVID-19, virus, China

Advertisement
Advertisement
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily online newspaper "Sofia Morning News." Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) and Sofia Morning News publish the latest economic, political and cultural news that take place in Bulgaria. Foreign media analysis on Bulgaria and World News in Brief are also part of the web site and the online newspaper. News Bulgaria