According to the thesis of a Chinese doctor presented 8 years ago, miners who at that time cleaned bat excrement presented the same characteristic symptoms of the current pandemic COVID-19. The researchers who translated the work also support the theory that the virus subsequently escaped from a Wuhan laboratory.

The COVID-19 strain that has ravaged the world this year could have a much older origin than suggested in its name. In 2012, some workers contracted an unknown illness similar to pneumonia after being exposed to bats.

The theory belongs to virologist Jonathan Latham and molecular biologist Allison Wilson, both from the Bioscience Resource Project in Ithaca (USA), who translated a master’s thesis written in 2013 by a Chinese doctor who cared for infected miners and He sent samples of his tissues to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for evaluation, according to the New York Post.

“The evidence it contains has led us to reconsider everything we thought we knew about the origins of the current pandemic,” wrote Latham and Wilson in an article published in July on the Independent Science News site .

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The mines as origin of COVID-19

In April 2012, six workers at the Mojiang mine, located in Yunnan province, thousands of kilometers from Wuhan, fell ill after spending more than 14 days removing bat feces. Later, three of the miners passed away.

In his 66-page thesis, doctor Li Xu described the symptoms that patients had, such as “high fever, dry cough, pain in the extremities and, in some cases, headaches,” precisely the same ones associated with COVID- 19.

Chinese researchers in caves to study bats.

In addition, the Chinese doctor described the process of treating the miners, which also turns out to be similar to the methods used today against the pandemic strain. In particular, the infected workers were treated with respirators and a combination of medications that included steroids, blood thinners, and antibiotics.

After conducting multiple tests for hepatitis, dengue, and even HIV, Li consulted with various specialists across China, including virologist Zhong Nanshan, who handled the SARS outbreak in 2003 and who is now among the government’s advisers. Chinese to handle the current pandemic.

Latham and Wilson called Li’s meeting with Nanshan “significant” as it “implies that the illnesses of the six miners were of great concern and, second, that a SARS-like coronavirus was considered a probable cause.”

The virus evolved in miners

Li Xu sent tissue samples from the infected miners to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where scientists confirmed the source of infection was a SARS-like coronavirus from the bat Rhinolophus rouxii .

Similarities Between Various SARS Viruses.

For their part, Latham and Wilson believe that the virus, once inside the miners, “evolved” to become SARS CoV-2. The scientists labeled their hypothesis about the origins of COVID-19 as “the passage of the Mojiang miners”, referring to the virological term “passing”, which means the process of adaptation of the virus to new species.

COVID-19 And The Escape From Wuhan Laboratory

According to Latham and Wilson, SARS CoV-2 is “an unusually pathogenic coronavirus highly adapted to humans, the samples of which somehow escaped from the Wuhan laboratory last year”, generating what has become the coronavirus pandemic.

Although those responsible for the Wuhan Institute of Virology have rejected this accusation since the official explanation of a “wet market” as origin began to be questioned , the truth is that both China’s secrecy in this regard during the early stages – when still it was an epidemic and a preventable pandemic – like the proximity between the laboratory and the supposed market , never helped to completely disprove the “escape” theory.

Virologist Jonathan Latham and molecular biologist Allison Wilson.

Subsequently, and to the derision of the news verifiers on social networks who at the time censored this notion, several independent investigations came to the same conclusion : that the virus had come out of a laboratory – but not that it had been manufactured there , it should be clarified -.

To make matters worse, taking into account the irregularities detected between China and the WHO that led to the spread of the virus, last May more than 100 countries demanded an investigation to find those who are truly responsible for a pandemic that has already cost millions of lives and generated a socio-economic chaos worldwide.

Source: New York Post / ISNews