Wuhan scientists admit being bitten by coronavirus infected bats in 2017 video: Report

In a shocking revelation made in the video from 2017, scientists from China’s Wuhan, where the COVID-19 first allegedly originated in December 2019, have admitted being bitten by bats who may have been infected. The SARS-CoV-2, novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was first reported in China and in March 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared it a pandemic. It's been over a year and the spread of the disease has impacted the entire world. Although, vaccinations have started to roll out in some of the nations in efforts to contain the virus. 

However, the video dated earlier from 2017, two years before the COVID-19 pandemic struck the Wuhan and then the world, features Wuhan Institute of Virology scientists working on 'live viruses’. That too, some were captured without a PPE kit which was reportedly a breach of WHO's safety rules on PPE. As per a report by The Taiwan Times, the narrator of the video, which is not present online, said that even though the scientists are wearing gloves, the risk of being injured by a bat bite “still exists”.

The media outlet further states virus researcher Cui Jie's experience of being bitten and said the fangs of the bat penetrated through his glove, which was likely nitrile. He reportedly further described the feeling as “like being jabbed with a needle" while collecting samples. The clip is then followed by visuals of a person’s limb showing swelling after being bitten by a bat.

Even though the video is not available online, the logo on the screenshot suggests that it is from ‘CCTV-13,’ a news channel of China Central Television. However, the 2017 video shows the scientists from the same Wuhan lab linked to the 'leak' of the novel coronavirus and the narrated in the clip even points out the fact that bats can carry a variety of potent viruses.

Credit: CCTV13

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US blames China for ‘concealing and unleashing’ the virus

While the World Health Organisation (WHO) team of international experts arrived in Wuhan to investigate the origins of COVID-19, the US Department of State on January 16 claimed that the researchers at a Wuhan lab got ill with COVID-19-like symptoms in autumn 2019 as they were experimenting with a virus genetically similar to SARS-CoV-2. In an official statement released by the US Dept. of State, the US intelligence stated that several researchers inside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, including the WIV’s staff and students were infected with SARS-CoV-2 like virus infection while they were studying RaTG13, a bat coronavirus identified by the Wuhan lab in January 2020, which is 96.2 per cent similar to coronavirus. 

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Image: AP