A laboratory in Wuhan city of China has removed photographs of the scientists from its website which purportedly showed the Chinese scientists taking swabs from bats carrying coronaviruses ahead of the global spread of COVID-19 disease.
The Institute of Virology of Wuhan removed the photographs amid growing pressures being levied on China by the Western States including the United States.
It also edited the references to visits by US diplomats who subsequently raised the alarm about the laboratory’s work on bats, according to Mail Online.
A reference regarding the visit of Rick Switzer, a science and technology expert from the US embassy in Beijing has also been removed from the website of the institute.
Cables were sent to the State Department from the embassy of the United States following the visit by Switzer which read: “During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they [the diplomats] noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory.”
Last month, The Mail on Sunday published alarming pictures from inside the institute showing a broken seal on the door of one of the refrigerators holding 1,500 different strains of virus.
This comes as President Donald Trump said Thursday that he had seen intelligence which gave him a ‘high degree of confidence’ that the global crisis had its origins in the institute.
The Mail on Sunday published alarming pictures from inside the institute last month which showed a broken seal on the door of one of the refrigerators holding 1,500 different strains of virus.
