Second low security Wuhan lab now focus of investigation

Intelligence agencies are understood to be taking a closer look at a low-security Wuhan laboratory which handled early samples of COVID-19 from patients who had been hospitalised with an unidentified illness.

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Intelligence agencies are understood to be taking a closer look at a low-security Wuhan laboratory which handled early samples of COVID-19 from patients who had been hospitalised with an unidentified illness.

Expert sources said the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control has become a new focus of investigation into whether it played a role in the catastrophic spread of the virus.

Chinese virologist Shi Zhengli inside the P4 laboratory in Wuhan. Picture: AFP

Situated near the wet market, the laboratory has lower bio-safety authorisation than the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where Shi Zhengli is the director of the Centre for Emerging Infectious Diseases, and has a history of poor safety practices.

Yet it is understood the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control, (WCDC) handled some of the earliest cases of the highly-infectious new coronavirus.

In an exclusive interview for Sunday night’s Sky News special investigation into China’s cover-up of the COVID-19 contagion, former British diplomat and Asia Studies director at the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, Matthew Henderson said he expects intelligence agencies would certainly be having a closer look at the WCDC.

“It is extremely important. (Shi Zhengli) was called back from Shanghai on the night of 30th December to receive that evening samples that were passed on from work that had been done by the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control,” he said.

“(The WCDC) had been looking for some time at samples from patients taken from hospitals who had this novel coronavirus disease.”

Intelligence agencies would certainly be having a closer look at the WCDC.

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One senior scientist from the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control spoke in December about how easy it is to be contaminated when taking samples from bats in the field and revealed his concerns for his health and safety.

“We can easily get contact with the faeces of bats which contaminate everything. So it is highly risky here. I feel the fear. The fear of infections,” senior scientist Tian Junhua said in a public video.

The South China Morning Post has reported the first coronavirus case was on November 17.

The first patient to be hospitalised in an isolation ward with a new pneumonia-like virus was reportedly on December 6.

The low-security Wuhan laboratory handled early samples of COVID-19 from patients.

Chinese authorities ordered that early samples of the virus that had already been sent to laboratories and genomics companies for testing be destroyed.

These allegations has formed part of the case by western governments of cover-up against China.

But Chinese authorities said they ordered the destruction of the samples because they were handled by laboratories without the correct authorisation.

The laboratories at the centre of a global probe into whether they played a role in the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic will be the focus of a Sky News special on Sunday night at 7.30pm.

The mini-documentary will also look at whether the coronavirus could have leaked from a laboratory and whether it was even created in one.

Originally published as Second low security Wuhan lab now focus of investigation