Scientists working at the Wuhan lab admitted they had been bitten by COVID-19 infected bats in a cave while collecting samples.

A video that emerged two years ago, before the coronavirus pandemic struck Wuhan and later the world, shows Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) scientists working on ‘live viruses’ without gloves and masks. This was in apparent breach of the World Health Organisation safety rules on PPE.

A scientist can be seen holding a bat with his bare hands in the video.

One researcher said one animal’s fangs went through his rubber gloves ‘like a needle’.These revelations will, first of all, raise the possibility that the scientists became infected with a coronavirus, including even COVID-19.

It further raises questions for the WHO team which is investigating the origins of Covid-19 following months of wrangling with Beijing over access to the Wuhan site.

China has been saying for months that although Wuhan is where the first cluster of cases was detected, it is not necessarily where the virus originated. The novel coronavirus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, was first detected in Wuhan in late 2019. The WHO team has arrived in Wuhan to begin the probe, which aims to investigate the animal origin of the pandemic after many hiccups.

source businesstoday.in