In 2017, Scientists warned that a SARS-like virus could escape a lab set-up that year in Wuhan, after China built a lab to study SARS and Ebola and some of the most dangerous pathogens in the world.
The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is the only lab in China specially designated for studying dangerous pathogens.
However, before its establishment in January 2018, biosafety experts and medical scientists from the United States expressed deep concerns that a virus could escape the lab.
Currently, a SARS-like Coronavirus has infected over 800 people with 25 people dead in Wuhan and nearby provinces. The virus had spread to at least 10 other countries.
A scientist who spoke to Nature in 2017, according to our findings said "studying behaviour of a virus like 209-nCoV and developing treatment or vaccines for it requires infecting research monkeys, an important step before human testing".
"Monkeys are unpredictable though, they can run, they can scratch, they can bite, and the virus they carry could go where their feet, nails and teeth do" said Ebright.
According to source, the virus had escaped multiple times from the lab in Beijing.
"The Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory is located about 20 miles away from the Haunan Seafood Market which made some wondered if the outbreak is coincidental, as scientists currently believed that the virus mutated through and jumped to people through animal human contact at the market".
According to reports, January 1, 2020. Total of 27 suspected cases were recorded. A seafood market was shut down for environmental sanitation and disinfection after being closely linked with the patients.
Hence 222 cases including a man in Tokyo who was confirmed to have tested positive for the disease after travelling to Chinese city of Wuhan, three deaths has been recorded as at January 20, 2020.
Meanwhile, Scientists at the Imperial college London account to reports fear "up to 4,500 patients in Wuhan may have caught the virus", citing that if "cases are this high, substantial human to human transmission can't be ruled out".
The video clip shows how people infected with the virus are dying in the street.
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