China – Chinese scientists tested a deadly virus that has a 100 percent fatality rate on mice, whose genetic composition was designed to resemble humans. The deadly virus was nicknamed GX_P2V.
As a result, the researchers found that the mice lost significant weight within five days of infection, were lethargic, and their eyes turned white.
“They died only eight days after being infected,” the researchers wrote further in the study quoted from the journal bioRxiv.
Scientists were shocked because the death rate due to infection with the virus was very fast.
“This underscores the risk of spread of GX_P2V to humans and provides a unique model for understanding the pathogenic mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2-related viruses,” the researchers wrote.
The researchers then analyzed the bodies of mice that had died from the virus. They found that the GX_P2V virus had infected the lungs, bones, eyes, trachea and brain.
“The brain infection was so severe that it killed the animals,” the researchers concluded.
According to research conducted by Beijing University of Chemical Technology, the virus is similar to Sars-CoV-2, discovered in 2017 in pangolins before the COVID-19 outbreak.
The research team also wrote in the study that this is the first study to report a 100 percent mortality rate in mice infected with a COVID-like virus, surpassing previously reported results from other studies.
Significantly, the results of this research are still unclear about the impact on humans.
Feedback from Members
After this research appeared, quite a few experts expressed their concerns. Francois Balloux, an epidemiologist at University College London’s Institute of Genetics, condemned the research as “appalling and scientifically completely pointless.”
“I don’t see anything interesting to be learned from forcibly infecting a strange type of humanized mouse with a random virus. On the contrary, I can see how such things could go wrong,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Dr Gennadi Glinsky, a retired professor of medicine at Stanford, also said the experiments should be stopped before it is too late.
This article was published on detikHealth with the title Horrified, Chinese Scientists Test Deadly Virus Similar to COVID-19
(suc/yum)
2024-01-21 15:30:02
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