Shafaq news/ Virus samples sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology seven years ago closely resemble Covid-19, according to a report in the Sunday Times that highlights unanswered questions about the origins of the global pandemic.

“Scientists in 2013 sent frozen samples to the Wuhan lab from a bat-infested former copper mine in southwest China after six men who had been clearing out bat feces there contracted a severe pneumonia”, the newspaper said.

“Three of them died and the most likely cause was a coronavirus transmitted from a bat”, the Sunday Times reported, citing “a medic whose supervisor worked in the emergency department that treated the men. The same mine in Yunnan province was subsequently studied by Shi Zhengli, an expert in SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origins at the Wuhan Institute of Virology”.

Shi nicknamed “bat woman” for her expeditions in bat caves, described Covid-19 in a February 2020 paper, saying it was 96.2% similar to a coronavirus sample named RaTG13 obtained in Yunnan in 2013. The Sunday Times said RaTG13 is “almost certainly” the virus that was found in the abandoned mine. the magazine quoted.