Chinese scientists 'create' a mutated coronavirus strain that attacks the BRAIN and has a 100% death rate in mice – as they admit there is a 'risk of it spreading to humans'

Chinese scientists have experimented with a mutated coronavirus strain that is 100 percent lethal in mice – despite concerns that such research could trigger a new pandemic.

Scientists in Beijing – linked to the Chinese military – have cloned a Covid-like virus found in pangolins, known as GX_P2V, and used to infect mice.

The mice were 'humanized', meaning they were designed to express a protein found in humans, with the aim of assessing how the virus might react in humans.

Each rodent infected with the pathogen died within eight days, which the researchers called “surprisingly” quickly.

The team was also surprised to find high levels of viral loads in the mice's brains and eyes. This suggests that despite being related to Covid, the virus replicates and spreads through the body in a unique way.

In a scientific paper not yet published, they warned that the finding “underlines a spillover risk from GX_P2V to humans.”

Professor Francois Balloux, an infectious disease expert at University College London, wrote on Twitter (X): 'It's a terrible study, scientifically completely pointless.

'I see nothing of vague importance that can be learned by forcibly infecting an alien species of humanized mice with any virus. Conversely, I could see how such things could go wrong…'

Professor Richard Ebright, a chemist at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, told DailyMail.com that he wholeheartedly agreed with Professor Balloux's assessment.

He added: 'The preprint does not specify the biosafety level and biosafety measures used for the study.

'The absence of this information raises the worrying possibility that some or all of this research, such as the 2016-2019 research in Wuhan that likely caused the Covid-19 pandemic, was recklessly conducted without the minimum biosafety containment and practices that are essential for research involving a potential pandemic pathogen.”

According to the study, conducted by Beijing University of Chemical Technology, the virus was discovered in 2017 before the Covid outbreak.

It was discovered in Malaysia in pangolins – scaly mammals known to carry coronaviruses and heavily speculated to be the intermediate hosts that transmitted Covid from bats to humans.

The researchers cloned the virus and stored several cops in the Beijing laboratory, where it continued to evolve.

It is unclear when the newly surfaced study was conducted. MarchThe researchers said it was possible that the virus had undergone a “virulence-enhancing mutation” during storage, making it more deadly.

For the new study, eight mice were infected with the virus, eight were infected with an inactivated virus and eight were used as a control group.

All mice infected with the virus died. They succumbed to the infection between seven and eight days after being infected.

Symptoms included their eyes turning completely white, rapid weight loss and fatigue.

Researchers found “significant amounts” of the virus in the rodents' brains, lungs, noses, eyes and windpipes.

By day six, the viral load in the lungs had 'significantly decreased', but the animals' brains had shrunk and there were 'exceptionally high' levels of virus in their brains.

The results suggest the virus infects through the respiratory system and then migrates to the brain – unlike Covid, which causes lower lung infections and pneumonia in severe cases. However, there are examples of Covid being found in the brain tissue of critically ill patients.

“Severe brain infection during the later stages of infection may be the main cause of death in these mice,” the researchers said.

They concluded: 'This is the first report showing that a SARS-CoV-2-related pangolin coronavirus can cause 100 percent mortality in hACE2 mice, indicating that there is a risk of GX_P2V spreading to humans.'

However, the original Covid strain also killed 100 percent in mice in some studies, meaning the new results may not be directly applicable to humans.

Dr. Gennadi Glinsky, a retired medical professor at Stanford, said on social media: “This madness must be stopped before [it is] too late.'

DailyMail.com revealed in 2022 how similar virus manipulation research was conducted by Boston University.

Researchers appeared to have created a new Covid strain that had an 80 percent mortality rate among mice.

It sparked a national debate over whether the experiments were an illegal form of research known as gain of function – in which viruses are purposefully made more deadly or contagious to study their evolution.

The Biden administration tightened the rules around such research in October 2022, but the definition of gain-of-function remains controversial.

Dr. Christina Parks, a molecular biologist at the University of Michigan, said the Chinese study was “classic gain of function,” whether they tell you it is or not.

One of the Chinese researchers was Dr. Yigang Tong, who trained at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, a Chinese military medical research institute run by the People's Liberation Army.

Dr. Tong studied there for a Master of Science between 1988 and 1991 and then for a PhD between 1997 and 2000.

He also co-authored a paper in 2023 with “bat lady” Zheng-Li Shi, who helps run the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

The WIV has been identified by the FBI and the US Department of Energy as the most likely source of the Covid pandemic in what is being called the 'lab leak' theory.

Researchers there, with grants from the US government, conducted gain-of-function experiments on coronaviruses in the months leading up to the Covid outbreak.

The virus first emerged miles away from the WIV, where researchers were known to be working on coronaviruses found in bats.