The lab of Wuhan to the origin of the epidemic ? Even a mosquito could not enter

The laboratory is suspected to have been able to let leak the virus at the origin of the Covid-19. In a television report, he defends the quality of its security procedures.

The laboratory of virology, Wuhan, suspected to have been able to let leak the virus at the origin of the Covid-19, has defended its security procedures, in a report broadcasted by the chinese tv. The laboratory P4, which works on strains of virus particularly dangerous in the town where the novel coronavirus has appeared at the end of last year, the subject of multiple hypotheses according to which it would be at the origin of the epidemic.

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But state television CCTV, the director of the national Laboratory biosafety and biosecurity, Yuan Zhiming, has denied such a possibility, evoked in particular by the us president Donald Trump. "Without permission, even a mosquito could not enter the lab," says Yuan Zhiming in this story, apparently the first directed at the interior of the site since its inauguration in 2017. "None of our laboratory technicians could not get out even a drop of water nor a piece of paper", he adds.

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Nearly 12 million people infected

"people who imagine that we could get out of the lab animals to sell them or that they could escape have no idea of our operation," says the director. Theory the most commonly accepted origin of the virus is that a bat may have infected another animal, perhaps a pangolin, before it pass it to the man.

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The place most likely the original contamination would be a market of Wuhan, which were sold live animals in the wild. The outbreak has since infected nearly 12 million people worldwide, including over half a million of them fatally.

"The rumors will dissipate gradually'

Yuan Zhiming considered "natural" that his lab may be the object of suspicion, since it is the closest to the epicenter of the epidemic. But he said he was confident that "the rumors will dissipate gradually'. "There has never been a leak of pathogens or human contaminations" in the laboratory, built with the collaboration of France, he assured.

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If the site can give the impression of being "a black box secret", it is in fact "very open and transparent," said Yuan Zhiming, who hope to welcome foreign researchers in the future to become "a platform for the exchange international". A single French researcher working at P4 of Wuhan. China has been accused of a lack of transparency in its management of the outbreak and the United States and Australia have asked for an international investigation on the subject, causing the wrath of Beijing.

Date Of Update: 11 July 2020, 12:58