The idea of the coronavirus as an escaped weapon has been carried through international news outlets like the British tabloid The Daily Mail and The Washington Times, which suggested that the virus was being developed as part of China’s biowarfare programme.
Steven W. Mosher, president of the Population Research, writing in the New York Post, on 22 February, said Chinese leader Xi Jinping, speaking at an emergency meeting in Beijing on 21 February, did not actually admit that the coronavirus, which was devastating large swaths of China had escaped from one of the country’s bioresearch labs. But the very next day, evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what happened, as the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive titled: “Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus.”
A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place “to protect the people’s health,” Xi said, because lab safety is a “national security” issue. This raises the question – Just how many “microbiology labs” are there in China that handle “advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus”? It turns out that in all of China, there is only one. National Biosafety Laboratory, a Chinese state-owned virology lab, is part of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus epidemic. And this one is located in the Chinese city of Wuhan that just happens to be the epicenter of the epidemic. China’s only Level 4 microbiology lab that is equipped to handle deadly coronaviruses has found it extremely hard to quell conspiracy theories proliferating around the institution – a sign of the sharply decreased level of public trust in the government.
Virology Lab
At the Institute, scientists carry out virus research at a lab with the highest level of biological containment available on the mainland. Its construction was approved in 2003, during China’s last deadly coronavirus outbreak, SARS. As the lab has researchers who study bat-related viruses, it became a target of online suspicion that coalesced into theories that the virus could have escaped from the lab, or be a bio-weapon gone wrong.
Liu Zhiming, hospital director in Wuhan, was later confirmed dead from coronavirus. The People’s Liberation Army’s top expert in biological warfare, a Maj. Gen. Chen Wei, was dispatched to Wuhan at the end of January to help with the effort to contain the outbreak. According to the PLA Daily, Chen has been researching coronaviruses since the SARS outbreak of 2003, as well as Ebola and anthrax. The novel coronavirus, now known as SARS-CoV-2, may have escaped from that very lab, and that Chen’s job is to try to put the genie back in the bottle, Mosher wrote.
China has a history of deadly viruses escaping. SARS virus had escaped – twice – from the Beijing lab where it was and probably was being used in experiments. A little-known fact is – Some Chinese researchers are in the habit of selling their laboratory animals to street vendors after they have finished experimenting on them to make a little extra cash.
Theories Rejected
Chinese authorities first blamed a seafood market not far from the Institute of Virology, even though the first documented cases of Covid-19 (the illness caused by SARS-CoV-2) involved people who had never set foot there. Then they pointed to snakes, bats and even a cute little scaly anteater called a pangolin as the source of the virus. It turns out that snakes do not carry coronaviruses and that bats are not sold at a seafood market. Neither are pangolins, an endangered species valued for their scales as much as for their meat.
The evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 research being carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The virus may have been carried out of the lab by an infected worker or crossed over into humans when they unknowingly dined on a lab animal.
Theories suggesting the new virus was purpose-built or the work of scientists have been emphatically rejected by scientists globally, including 27 prominent public health scientists from outside China who issued a statement published by medical journal The Lancet. “Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent… and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife,” it said.
The journal Nature added a note to a 2017 story on the lab to alert readers to “unverified theories” about the lab in relation to the new coronavirus.
There’s still so much that is not known about the virus and its origins. A notice from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology on 15 February said that China should enhance its management of viruses and bioagents at all labs and research institutes. Despite many explanations and strong statements, internet users were not convinced by the assurances from the lab.
What can be done to contain theories of a rogue lab? When the authorities and experts have the history of not being transparent.
Trevor Bedford, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, rubbished stories circulating on social media that Covid-19 was created at Wuhan Institute of Virology or elsewhere in China, rumours that prompted the World Health Organization to warn of an “infodemic” of false news on the outbreak. He also disputed claims that Covid-19 might have infected humans from snakes or even fish. The most likely scenario, based on genetic analysis, was that the virus was transmitted by a bat to another mammal between 20-70 years ago. This intermediary animal – not yet identified – passed it on to its first human host in the city of Wuhan in late November or early December 2019. Dr Bedford was reluctant to forecast the future course of the epidemic. He is a leader of the worldwide Nextstrain collaboration that began to analyse Covid-19 genomes when they were released in January by Fudan University and the Chinese Centre for Disease Control. By now scientists around the world have published the genetic sequence of virus taken from about 100 patients.
Viruses as Bioweapons
Bioweapons are not new in this world. From ancient times till today we see human beings using weapons of mass destruction especially bioweapons such as Anthrax, Botulism and Variola to achieve their political, religious or other agendas. Such weapons are engineered in laboratories and not naturally found, hence it is a pre-planned strategy to engage in mass destruction, disruption and also gain businesses out of it. Such weapons are strategically deployed in the areas which are vulnerable and aimed to create global hysteria in the public. Biological weapons is a subset of a larger class of weapons referred to as weapons of mass destruction, which also includes chemical, nuclear and radiological weapons. The use of biological agents is a serious problem, and the risk of using these agents in a bioterrorist attack is increasing. This is generally called as bioterrorism. Using Biological agents causing number of deaths in a short amount of time while being difficult to contain.
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The Plague in Surat, 1994
An outbreak of bubonic and pneumonic plague in south-central and western India from 26 August to 18 October 1994 resulted in 693 suspected cases and 56 deaths. The affected states were Maharashtra (488 cases), Gujarat (77 cases), Karnataka (46 cases), Uttar Pradesh (10 cases), Madhya Pradesh (4 cases) and New Delhi (68 cases). There are no reported cases of export to other countries.
In the first week of August 1994 health officials reported unusually large numbers of deaths of domestic rats in Surat city of Gujarat state. On 21 September 1994 the Deputy Municipal Commissioner of Health (DMCH) for Surat city received a report that a patient had died seemingly due to pneumonic plague. The DMCH of Surat alerted medical officers in the area where the patient had died. Later that day, about 10 deaths were reported in Ved Road residential area and around 50 seriously ill patients were admitted to hospital. This triggered the biggest post-independence migration of people in India with around 300,000 people leaving Surat city in two days.
News of the plague spread through Surat city through the night of 21 September 1994. Ill-prepared, medical shops quickly exhausted stocks of tetracycline. This led to panic with people fleeing hospitals fearing infection from other sick patients. Over the course of this event, many flights from India to the nearby Gulf region were suspended. Some countries also put a hold on the imports from India.
The epicenter of the plague was Surat, Gujarat. Although the plague only lasted a little over two weeks, it caused widespread panic. Tourism was negatively affected, flights to India were cancelled, and some planes from India were fumigated at airports.
Large scale flooding occurred due to the heavy rain and clogged sewers. This caused dead animals to remain out in the open, which added to the already unhygienic conditions.
Much like the Black Death that spread through medieval Europe, some questions still remain unanswered about the 1994 epidemic in Surat. Initial questions about whether it was an epidemic of plague arose because the Indian health authorities were unable to culture Yersinia pestis, but this could have been due to lack of sophisticated laboratory equipment. Yet there are several lines of evidence strongly suggesting that it was a plague epidemic: blood tests for Yersinia were positive, a number of individuals showed antibodies against Yersinia and the clinical symptoms displayed by the affected were all consistent with the disease being plague.
A committee under chairmanship of Professor Vulimiri Ramalingaswami was formed by the Government of India to investigate the plague episode. In 1995 the committee submitted the report ‘The Plague Epidemic of 1994’ to the Government of India. The report concluded that the disease was plague. Also the origin of disease could not be traced.
