imago
Corona outbreak in high security lab! Did a lab rat bite and infect an employee? Terrible thought – investigations are in full swing!
Did a lab rat infect a co-worker?
Taiwan authorities are investigating the link between a rat bite and a COVID-19 infection in Taiwan after a lab worker tested positive for the virus last week.
Health officials are scrambling to figure out how the employee at Academia Sinica’s Genomics Research Center, a high-security laboratory, contracted COVID-19 while the island’s borders remain closed.
Woman was fully vaccinated!
The employee, a fully vaccinated woman in her 20s, tested positive for COVID-19 last week after coming into contact with the virus in mid-November at the country’s leading research institute.
Taiwan has reported a total of just over 16,700 local cases and 848 deaths. The last locally transmitted case on the island had occurred on November 5, AFP reported.
Woman was bitten 2x
Authorities confirmed that the woman had been bitten twice by rats infected with the virus. It is unclear whether the rat bites were responsible for the woman testing positive for COVID-19.
“We believe the likelihood of infection is higher in the workplace because we have no confirmed infections in the community,” Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said.
“As for the workplace, whether it’s in the office or in the lab, we found that there is a higher risk in the lab. But whether the infection is caused by the [mouse] bite or the environment, we need to investigate further.”