OAN’s Abril Elfi
3:27 PM – Wednesday, January 17, 2024
A research group in Beijing, China, has been reportedly experimenting with a new strain of COVID-19 in humanized mice, except this strain is said to be 100% lethal.
The study included researchers from the Beijing University of Chemical Technology and Nanjing University.
According to the study, the fatal virus, “GX_P2V,” attacked the brains of mice that were engineered to reflect genetic makeup similar to humans.
“This underscores a spillover risk of GX_P2V into humans and provides a unique model for understanding the pathogenic mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2-related viruses,” the authors wrote.
The deadly virus is said to be a mutated version of the GX/2017, which is a coronavirus strand that was discovered in Malaysian pangolins in 2017 and also in mammals found in warm areas.
The research states that all the mice died in just eight days, which they called “surprisingly rapid.”
The virus reportedly infected the bones, eyes, and lungs of the humanized mice as well as their tracheas and brains. Before the mice died, they had extreme weight loss, exhibited a hunched posture, moved “sluggish” and, lastly, their eyes turned completely white.
However, the results of the study do not completely indicate how it would affect human beings in comparison.
Francois Balloux, an epidemiology expert at University College London’s Genetics Institute, slammed the research as “terrible” and “scientifically totally pointless.”
“I can see nothing of vague interest that could be learned from force-infecting a weird breed of humanized mice with a random virus. Conversely, I could see how much stuff might go wrong,” the professor said. “The preprint does not specify the biosafety level and biosafety precautions used for the research, the absence of this information raises the concerning possibility that part or all of this research, like the research in Wuhan in 2016-2019 that likely caused the Covid-19 pandemic, recklessly was performed without the minimal biosafety containment and practices essential for research with potential pandemic pathogens.”
The Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, the epicenter of lab leak claims surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, does not appear to be associated with this 2024 study.
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