A bat in the hands of researchers.
The Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, the Chinese laboratory suspected to be at the center of the origin of the Wuhan pneumonia (Covid-19) pandemic, was granted a patent for a cage that could be used to contain live bats being tested months before the Wuhan virus began to spread.
The revelation comes after the World health Organization last week backed Beijing‘s line that the Wuhan Institute’s leak was “highly improbable” while believing the theory that the virus entered China through frozen meat, according to a Feb. 14 report in the Mail on Sunday.
The WHO’s investigation team included British zoologist Peter Daszak, whose organization, the EcoHealth Alliance, has worked with Wuhan Virus Laboratory scientists for 15 years on the bat-borne virus, and he vehemently denied that researchers kept the mammal in the lab for testing. The mammal was kept in the lab for testing.
However, the Mail on Sunday established that the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, in June 2018, patented a “bat-rearing cage” that would “allow bats to grow and reproduce healthily under artificial conditions.
The newspaper saw the patent, which was granted in January 2019, 11 months before Beijing reported the city’s first outbreak of the virus, just a few miles from the institute.
Another patent filed by the institute on Oct. 16, 2020, relates to a “method for artificial reproduction of wild bats.
Shi Zhengli, director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, Wuhan Institute of Virology
The patent addresses cross-species transmission of SARS-CoV from bats to humans and other animals, stating, “Bats infected with the virus naturally or artificially have no obvious clinical symptoms and the mechanism is unknown.
It specifies that the method is for breeding bats for scientific experiments: “The purpose of the present invention is to provide a method for artificial breeding of wild bat predators, aiming to overcome the defects in the prior art, to artificially domesticate, breed, and pass on wild bat predators, and to establish an artificial breeding population, thereby providing a new type of experimental animal for scientific research. “
In response to the question of whether the researchers keep live bats, Dazak tweeted last April, “The researchers do not keep bats and do not kill them. All bats are released back to the cave site after sampling. It’s a protective measure and much safer in terms of disease transmission than killing them or trying to keep them in the lab.”
And in December of last year, he seemed to repeat that claim, saying that the labs he has worked with for 15 years – such as the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research – “have no live or dead bats in them. There is no evidence anywhere that this has happened.”
The Communist government has cloaked the institute in secrecy, so it is difficult to determine the extent to which those patents have been translated into practice, but the lab’s online biography also notes that researchers have the ability to keep 12 bat cages, as well as 12 ferret cages.
Last week, Dazak, who has faced intense criticism for his research and funding ties to the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, also took aim at the U.S. intelligence community. In the words of the U.S. State Department, the Wuhan lab leak was the “most reliable” source of the virus.
Datsyak was a member of the WHO investigation team that played a major role in the Chinese Communist government’s attempts to silence any accountability for the spread of the virus. Their findings were based on interviews with staff at the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, which has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party military.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last year that the WHO allowed the CCP to vet the scientists who participated in the investigation, while also appointing Dazak to its 10-member panel, even though the British charity head, whose funding for the Wuhan lab’s bat virus research had previously been halted on security grounds.
The bat cage patent contains extensive details on feeding, watering and breeding conditions, saying the animals are “captured as needed and …… released after taking [desired] samples or temporarily rearing [for a period of Time].”
And in November 2019, when U.S. intelligence noted a possible Covid-19 outbreak at the lab, the Wuhan lab applied for a patent on a device to treat injuries sustained during contact with the pathogenic virus in a biosafety lab.
The researchers who applied for the patent, who have worked at the Wuhan Institute of Biosafety Viruses for more than a decade, included a scientist involved in research on bat coronaviruses.
The specialized tourniquet device, designed to be wrapped around the finger of a person bleeding in a virology laboratory accident, appears to be the only one of several hundred published patents related to the treatment of injuries.
Charles Small, an open source intelligence consultant who studied the origins of the virus and discovered the patents, said, “The Wuhan Institute of Virology describes capturing wild bats in caves and raising them in their patented cages as animal models for scientific experiments. They mention infecting the bats with the virus in an artificial way.”
“The Wuhan Institute of Virus’ patented method involves daily feeding of bats known to carry SARS-associated coronaviruses, with the risk of coronavirus spillover. The Wuhan Institute of Virus Research also announced cages for ferrets and rabbits.”
Alan Mendoza, executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, a think tank, said, “WHO, should give a full account of the Wuhan Virus Institute’s bat and bat coronavirus experiments. As this outbreak continues and more and more people tragically lose their lives, the research conducted by China and its Wuhan Institute of Virus Research, faces ever-increasing problems.”
“It is becoming increasingly clear that the WHO investigation is not fit for purpose and what we need is a confession from the Chinese Communist Party to tell us the truth about the source of Covid-19.”
The Chinese Communist Embassy did not comment on the Wuhan Institute of Virus Research’s live bat testing, saying on the evening of 13: “There are increasing international reports of outbreaks of viruses and epidemics in multiple parts of the world in the second half of 2019, which demonstrates the need and urgency for WHO to conduct similar missions to other countries and regions.”
Dazak declined to comment on 13.
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