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Just when you thought the world had learned its lesson from the COVID-19 catastrophe, Chinese scientists have been busy in their labs—again—studying yet another bat coronavirus capable of infecting humans.
And guess who’s leading the charge? None other than Shi Zhengli, the infamous “Batwoman” of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the same institution at the center of the lab-leak theory that global elites have tried to bury.
According to a report from the South China Morning Post, the virus—dubbed HKU5-CoV-2—was identified by none other than Shi Zhengli, the infamous “Batwoman” of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Shi, whose lab has been at the center of theories regarding the origins of COVID-19, led a study alongside researchers from the Guangzhou Laboratory, the Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, and Wuhan University.
The newly discovered virus, a variant of the HKU5 coronavirus first found in Japanese pipistrelle bats in Hong Kong, reportedly has the ability to bind to the human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) receptor—the same receptor that SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, uses to enter human cells.
The study, published in Cell Press, details how HKU5-CoV-2, part of the merbecovirus subgenus that includes the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), has an alarming ability to infect human cells. Structural and functional analyses indicate that HKU5-CoV-2 binds to human ACE2 more efficiently than its predecessor, HKU5-CoV-1.
The virus was successfully isolated and confirmed to infect human ACE2-expressing cells, as well as human respiratory and enteric organoids. In layman’s terms: this virus, which originated in bats, is now proven capable of infecting human tissues.
More from Daily Mail:
The new HKU5-CoV-2 is a coronavirus belonging to the merbecovirus family of pathogens.
Merbecoviruses have been detected in minks and pangolins – the animal believed to be the intermediary for Covid between bats and humans.
This, the scientists wrote, ‘suggests frequent cross-species transmission of these viruses between bats and other animal species.’
They added: ‘This study reveals a distinct lineage of HKU5-CoVs in bats that efficiently use human [cells] and underscores their potential zoonotic risk.’
HKU5-CoV viruses were first detected in bats in 2006, but the new data suggests HKU5-CoV-2 has a ‘higher potential for interspecies infection’ than others.
However, the potential for HKU5-CoV-2 to spill over to humans ‘remains to be investigated.’
Who is Shi Zhengli?
The Gateway Pundit extensively covered Shi Zhengli. TGP first mentioned China’s Dr. Shi Zhengli on April 9, 2020, long before other news publications. About a week after our first post, Dr. Shi’s name was finally breaking into the mainstream media reports.
Chinese doctor Shi Zhengli was part of a team was working on a coronavirus project jointly with US doctors in 2014 before it was shut down by the DHS for being too risky.
After the US research project was shut down, Dr. Shi continued her coronavirus research in Wuhan, China.
After the work stopped in the US, the Chinese moved forward with the project and ran research and development in Wuhan at the Wuhan Virology Center. From Shi Zhengli’s papers and resume, it is clear that they successfully isolated the virus in the lab and were actively experimenting with species <-> species transmission.
The Gateway Pundit has obtained an article from Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS, in which Dr. Shi was interviewed about her work on the coronavirus obtained from bats.
The article was in Chinese but has been translated. In the article from December 2017, Dr. Shi was interviewed and shared the following:
1. Shi Zhengli and others are called “virus hunters.” They search the world for viruses that have not yet infected humans. Before they wreak havoc, they study them clearly to prevent new infectious diseases.
2. The bat is the source for SARS
3. Viruses from bats generally require an intermediate host, such as the SARS virus.
4. The SARS virus in 2002-2003 was detected in civets (wild cats) sold to the Guangdong market.
5. From 2011 to 2015, Shi Zhengli’s research team took continuous samples from a small cave in Kunming, Yunnan.
6. All the genetic components of the SARS virus strain that caused human outbreaks were found in the bats in this cave.
7. Over the past five years [through 2017], the viruses they received were collected into a large “reservoir”.
8. The prevention and treatment of SARS epidemic is mainly through the direct report system of infectious diseases in hospitals: once the patients suspected of SARS are reported, they will report it. There are already diagnostic techniques and vaccine reserves. If the diagnosis is a case of SARS virus infection, isolate it immediately.
9. For these viruses that are easy to infect humans, we developed diagnostic techniques and even developed some vaccines for storage.
You can read more about TGP’s report on Shi Zhengli here.
The post You Can’t Make This Up: China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology “Discovers” Yet Another Coronavirus Capable of Human Transmission appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.