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In the latest development, scientists at Boston University in the United States claimed to have created a new COVID-19 strain with an 80% death rate.
Following a series of similar experiments that were initially believed to have caused the worldwide pandemic which started in China, a group of researchers from Florida and Boston carried out the research at the university’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, Fox News reported.
According to the university, the strain, which is a combination of Omicron and the original virus from Wuhan, killed 80% of the afflicted mice. Mice showed very mild symptoms after a single Omicron exposure. Further, the researchers extracted the spike protein from Omicron and combine it with the strain which was initially discovered at the commencement of the pandemic in China’s Wuhan. They then recorded how the infected mice reacted to the hybrid strain.
The scientists stated in the research, “In.mice, while Omicron causes mild, non-fatal infection, the Omicron S-carrying virus inflicts severe disease with a mortality rate of 80 percent,” Fox News reported.
According to experts, the new variant has five times more contagious virus particles than the Omicron strain.
Criticism over the lethal COVID strain
Coronavirus was first thought to have originated from a wet market in Wuhan, however, many people think that the virus was created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The World Health Organization is still under fire for how it handled the crisis in its first, most crucial stages.
In the meantime, scientists from Boston University have been criticized for “playing with fire” when it was revealed they had developed a deadly new strain of COVID-19 in a lab.
According to the Daily Mail report, the leading Israeli government scientist, Professor Shmuel Shapira asserted, “This should be totally forbidden, it’s playing with fire.”
Furthermore, the gain of function research, in which viruses are intentionally altered to be more contagious or lethal, is regarded to be the root cause of COVID. A similar investigation into bat coronaviruses was conducted in a Chinese laboratory that was within a few kilometres from the initial cluster of cases, Daily Mail reported.
But since 2017, the US has significantly limited such practice.
Even among people who have had all prescribed vaccinations, the Omicron strain is very contagious. Researchers have shown that the spike protein controls the virus’s infectivity rates, while other structural modifications to the virus influence its timeliness.
In addition to this, the breed of mice utilized in the study was one of its limitations because other breeds are more similar to humans, Fox News reported.
