China's 'bat woman' feared Covid could have escaped from her Wuhan lab trends now

China's 'bat woman' feared Covid could have escaped from her Wuhan lab trends now
China's 'bat woman' feared Covid could have escaped from her Wuhan lab trends now

China's 'bat woman' feared Covid could have escaped from her Wuhan lab trends now

China's own 'bat woman' feared Covid could have leaked from inside her secretive laboratory, insiders claimed today. 

Dr Shi Zhengli, a leading virologist based at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, spent years researching bat coronaviruses with aim of identifying those with the potential to infect people. 

Both she and Beijing itself have vehemently and publicly denied the possibility that Covid could have emerged from experiments carried out at the lab.

However, one of her colleagues has now revealed that at the start of the pandemic, Dr Shi feared exactly that.

Professor Wang Linfa, described as a friend of hers by the BBC, said the respected scientist spent 'sleepless nights' combing through frozen virus samples at the WIV, fearing 'what might happen' if she found an exact match for Covid in her lab. 

Shi Zhengli - dubbed the 'Bat Lady' of 'Bat Woman' for her work on bat coronaviruses - investigated the possibility Covid could have emerged from her lab back in 2020 according to colleagues. Here she is pictured working with other researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2017

Shi Zhengli - dubbed the 'Bat Lady' of 'Bat Woman' for her work on bat coronaviruses - investigated the possibility Covid could have emerged from her lab back in 2020 according to colleagues. Here she is pictured working with other researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2017

While China has insisted the virus originated elsewhere, academics, politicians and the media have contemplated the possibility it leaked from a high-level biochemical lab in Wuhan - raising suspicions that Chinese officials simply hid evidence of the early spread

While China has insisted the virus originated elsewhere, academics, politicians and the media have contemplated the possibility it leaked from a high-level biochemical lab in Wuhan - raising suspicions that Chinese officials simply hid evidence of the early spread

Professor Wang, a Singaporean expert in emerging infectious diseases, and an honorary professor at the WIV, said he recalled how Dr Shi spent 'sleepless nights' to ensure Covid wasn't linked to her lab

Professor Wang, a Singaporean expert in emerging infectious diseases, and an honorary professor at the WIV, said he recalled how Dr Shi spent 'sleepless nights' to ensure Covid wasn't linked to her lab

Such a match could have proved the virus did spawn inside the halls of the facility. 

However, no such proof was found, it is claimed.  

It is the latest sign that Chinese scientists and officials, who have staunchly denied any plausibility of the lab leak hypothesis, quietly explored the possibility early days of the outbreak. 

Professor Wang, an expert in emerging infectious diseases based in Singapore, is an honorary professor at the WIV.

He was collaborating closely with team there back in January 2020, as Covid cases just started to emerge in Wuhan. 

He told Fever: The Hunt for Covid's Origin, an eight-part BBC Radio 4 series, that Dr Shi was deeply concerned about the coincidence that a coronavirus similar to ones the WIV was studying was spreading in the city the lab was based in.

'The thing that was on her mind is 'what happens if there's a sample in her lab that she did not know of that has a virus that has contaminated something and got out',' he said.

'She went through all her samples to make sure there was nothing close to SARS-CoV-2 (the technical name of the virus that causes Covid).

'She spent the first week going through every sequence to make sure nothing was even close.'

According to Professor Wang, Dr Shi was 'enormously relieved' to find that after her audit no Covid, or any virus particularly closely related virus, a 99 per cent match or above, was found.

While she did find RaTG13, a coronavirus sample collected from bats in China in 2013 was a 96 per cent match, this was considered too different to the Covid virus to be a potential origin. 

To further alleviate her worries of a potential leak, she also asked her team to submit blood samples for Covid antibodies.

If any tested positive, it would have been a tell-tale sign that in the days and weeks prior, they had been infected with the virus, indicating a potential accidental leak from the WIV.

But, according to her, all staff

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