World’s deadliest viruses were ‘shipped to Wuhan ‘leak lab’ from Canada by rogue scientists linked to Chinese military’
SOME of the world's deadliest viruses were shipped to the Wuhan Institute of Virology from Canada by two rogue scientists with links to the Chinese military, it is reported.
Bombshell documents revealed how a shipment of dangerous Ebola and Nipah viruses were sent in 2019 from Canada's National Microbiology Lab to the Wuhan facility at the centre of the "lab leak" storm.
The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said it sent the 15 strains of viruses on a commercial flight to China "for the purpose of scientific research" in March, 2019.
The package included a sample of the deadly zoonotic Nipah virus - which causes severe swelling of the brain, difficulty breathing and seizures.
It also included several strains of the Ebola virus, which causes fevers, vomiting, diarrhoea as well as internal and external bleeding. The disease has claimed more than 11,300 lives in West Africa.
But soon after the shipment, Dr Xiangguo Qiu and her biologist husband Keding Cheng were marched out of the Winnipeg-based lab and stripped of their security clearance, CBC News reports.
The couple and their graduate students from China were escorted from the lab in July, 2019 and officially fired in January, 2020.
Several computers were seized, a lab log book was missing and Qiu's regular trips to Wuhan were suspended, sources told CBC News.
According to The Globe and Mail, PHAC said the firing of the scientists was an "administrative matter" and cited "possible breaches of security protocols".
But the shipment of the virus samples and the booting of the scientists has been shrouded in mystery for two years, alarming security experts and epidemiologists.
And the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are now investigating how two Chinese military scientists managed to secure access to the lab in Canada - a Level-4 facility set up to handle some of the world's most dangerous viruses.
The Globe and Mail named one of the scientists as Feihu Yan, from the People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Medical Sciences, who co-authored a paper with Dr Qiu.
Cops are also examining whether the viruses were shipped to China without a document protecting Canada's intellectual property rights, a source told the newspaper.
The probe will look at whether key materials - which could have been used to recreate viruses or vaccines - were handed over to the Chinese authorities without the approval of the PHAC.
Leah West, a national security law expert at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, told CBC News: "If China was leveraging these scientists in Canada to gain access to a potentially valuable pathogen or to elements of a virus without having to license the patent... it makes sense with the idea of China trying to gain access to valuable IP without paying for it."
The theory that the pandemic emerged from a lab in Wuhan has been gaining momentum, stepping up from being dismissed as a "conspiracy" to a genuine concern.
Shocking biosecurity lapses spanning over 40 years have led some to question the official Chinese line that the disease was passed from animals to human.
British spies are looking into the theory - and consider it "feasible" - while US President Joe Biden has ordered the intelligence community will "redouble their efforts" to discover the origins of the outbreak.
Cops have been told that Dr Qiu, who arrived in Canada in 1996, and Cheng fled back to China after they were fired from the lab.
Dr Qiu had made at least five trips to China in 2017 and 2018, including one to train scientists and technicians at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to documents obtained by CBC News.
'SUSPICIOUS'
But the couple, who have two houses in Winnipeg valued at $1.7 million, haven't been seen since they attended a memorial service for a colleague in February, 2020, according to reports.
Amir Attaran, a law professor and epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa, said the case was "suspicious" and "potentially life-threatening".
"We have a researcher who was removed by the RCMP from the highest security laboratory that Canada has for reasons that government is unwilling to disclose," he told CBC News.
"But what we know is that before she was removed, she sent one of the deadliest viruses on Earth, and multiple varieties of it to maximise the genetic diversity and maximise what experimenters in China could do with it, to a laboratory in China that does dangerous gain of function experiments.
"And that has links to the Chinese military."
What do we know about the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
THE Wuhan Institute of Virology is the highest security lab of its kind in all of China - and can be found right at the heart of the origins of the pandemic.
Various theories have been reported about the lab, which is headed up by scientist Dr Shi Zhengli, known as “Bat Woman”.
The lab specialises in bat-borne viruses and had been carrying out experiences on them since 2015.
Airlocks, full body suits, and chemical showers are required before entering and leaving the facility - the first in China to be accredited with biosafety level 4 (BSL-4).
BSL-4 labs are the only areas in the world where scientists are permitted to study diseases that have no cure.
Scientists from the lab even tested a mysterious virus which killed three miners 1,000 miles away in Yunnan province back in 2012.
It has been suggested this fatal bug may have been the true origin of Covid-19.
Experts at the lab also engineered a new type of hybrid 'super-virus' that can infect humans in 2015, according to journal Nature Medicine
The study was designed to show the risk of viruses carried by bats which could be transmitted to humans.
There is no suggestion the facility's 2015 work is linked to the pandemic and the facility denies the lab leak claims.
The lab was also recruiting new scientists to probe coronaviruses in bats just seven days before the outbreak.
Gain of function experiments are when a virus is taken into a lab and mutated to see if it has become more deadly or infectious.
And two national security experts believe the case raises the possibility of Chinese espionage.
Christian Leuprecht, a security expert and professor at the Royal Military College and Queen's University, told CBC News: "It appears that what you might well call Chinese agents infiltrated one of the highest prized national security elements when it comes to biosecurity and biodefence."
'WAKE-UP CALL'
He added: "This needs to be a wake-up call for Canada about how aggressive the Chinese have become at infiltrating Western institutions for their political, economic and national security benefits.
"China has a very active, very aggressive and extremely dangerous bioweapons program.
"So all the research that's being generated here could easily be reappropriated by the Chinese authorities to advance rather nefarious causes."
Scott Newark, executive officer of the Canadian Police Association, said: "Why did our security procedures not identify that this was not a good idea, that these individuals, given their background, should not be given security clearances?"
The PHAC previously said the National Microbiology Lab routinely shares samples with other public health labs and the transfers follow strict protocols.
STRAINS OF VIRUS SHIPPED TO WUHAN
Canada's National Microbiology Lab send two vials each of 15 strains of virus:
- Ebola Makona (three different varieties)
Ebola is a very serious infectious disease, which causes horrific fevers and bleeding inside the body.
- Mayinga
Mayinga is a variant of the Ebola virus that infected a nurse called Mayinga N'Seka in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976. The strain was originally named "Zaïre virus strain Mayinga".
- Kikwit
Another strain of Ebola, the 1995 Kikwit Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the most well studied epidemics.
- Ivory Coast
This is another Ebola strain, which resulted in a human infection due to contact with a chimpanzee from the Tai Forest, Ivory Coast.
- Bundibugyo
Another Ebola strain named for its outbreak location. Bundibugyo is one of the most western of all Uganda's district capitals.
- Sudan Boniface
A strain of Ebola which emerged in Sudan 1998.
- Sudan Gulu
Another Ebola strain found in Sudan called Gulu.
- Hendra
Hendra virus infects large fruit bats, before spreading to horses and humans. The virus causes inflammation of the brain, convulsions and coma, and can even be fatal.
- Nipah Malaysia
Nipah virus infection in humans can lead to acute respiratory infection and fatal swelling of the brain. Fruit bats are the natural host of deadly virus. Nipah Malaysia is named for its outbreak location.
- Nipah Bangladesh
Nipah Bangladesh is a strain of Nipah identified in Bangladesh. It has the same symptoms as Nipah Malaysia. There is no treatment or vaccine available for people or animals who catch the virus.
- Dr Qiu also sent samples of MA-Ebov, GP-Ebov and GP-Sudan, which are glycoproteins found on the surface of the Ebola virus.
PHAC president Iain Stewart told a parliamentary committee in May: "While this is the only time that we have shared virus samples with this particular lab, collaboration with labs outside of Canada are critical to advance public health research into infectious diseases."
The public health body has not confirmed whether the scientists are Canadian citizens and previously insisted Qiu's firing and the shipment were not connected.
And the RCMP declined to discuss the nature of the ongoing investigation or confirm whether Dr Qiu and her husband are now in China.
"We are not in a position to respond at this time. The investigation is continuing," Corporal Julie Courchaine of the Manitoba RCMP division told to The Globe and Mail in a statement.
Dr Qiu, from Tianjin, China, arrived in Canada to study at the University of Manitoba in 1996, before working at the national lab as a research scientist in 2006.
She worked her way up to become head of the Vaccine Development and Antiviral Therapies section in the lab's special pathogens programme.
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