On March 30, 2021, the WHO-convened study
into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 was released. Annex D3 states that
“with regard to the matter of morbidity and mortality in miners in a mine in
Mojiang, Yunnan Province, where bats were present, Professor Shi said that the
events had been clarified in an addendum to her Nature article.”
These illnesses had occurred in miners exposed to
bat guano in 2012.
The Annex states “the reported illnesses associated
with the miners, according to the WIV experts, were more likely explained by
fungal infections”. However, the Nature Addendum referred to (Addendum: A
pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin) states that “we suspected that the patients had been
infected by an unknown virus”. In addition, the Master’s thesis by Li Xu,
which meticulously documents the clinical course of the six miners,
hypothesised a viral illness, stressing this in its title (Analysis of Six
Patients With Unknown Viruses).
This thesis records that Dr. Nanshan Zhong (consulted remotely) reached a
similar diagnosis, even noting that he stated there is a “great possibility for
virus (sic) infection”. The Master’s thesis makes it clear that the
Kunming-based clinical team (and Dr Nanshan Zhong) considered that a secondary
(co-existing) fungal infection (secondary aspergillosis) was considered
plausible. For this reason the patients were treated with anti-fungal
medication, including Caspofungin. However, three of the six patients still
died and it is clear that the primary scientific interest in the cases was the
possibility of a novel virus. It is inferable that the possibility of novel
viruses being found in the Mojiang cave was rapidly communicated to Professor
Shi’s team, most probably by Dr Nanshan Zhong or the Kunming medical team
(or both), leading to the first of about seven visits made to the Mojiang cave
between 2012-2015, by Professor Shi’s team, as described in Annex D7.
However, Annex D7 does not explain why the theory of a bat (or bat-guano)
associated virus infecting the miners, originally considered such a strong
possibility as to provoke about seven visits to this remote cave, was
discarded, apparently between November 2020 (when the Nature Addendum was
published) and February 2021 (when Professor Shi and her colleagues provided
this different opinion included in Annex D7).
Annex D7 also provides a rudimentary occupational
history of the miners’ exposure, stating that the “miners had been to the cave
2-3 times”. This contradicts the details provided by Li Xu (published in 2013,
apparently based on clinical records made at the time of the miners’ illnesses,
three of which were fatal) which states, for example, that one patient (aged
63) “had been working in the mining well for half of a month. He worked 7 hours
a day”. The occupational history for case three (aged 45) is described as: “The
patient went into a 150 meter deep cave 24 days ago. He continuously inhaled
some unknown gas for 10 days”. The relevant occupational history of case five
(age 30) is translated as “he has been to a big cave (about 150 meters deep) to
work and was exposed to feces of bat for 4 days.”
Annex D7 does not give any detail of the source or
“provenance” of information about the miners’ illnesses, other than it was
provided by Professor Shi between January 14 and February 10, 2021. Unless one
or more of Professor Shi’s team was working in the Kunming hospital in 2012 and
was caring for one or more of the Mojiang-exposed miners the Wuhan team’s
information about the miners must be secondary. Was it from Dr Nanshan Zhong?
Was it obtained directly from one or more doctors at the Kunming hospital? Was
additional information obtained from the Master’s thesis, written by Li Xu? In
any case, claiming (as Annex D7 does) that “the illnesses of the miners exposed
to bat guano in 2012 in Mojiang” were “clarified” in the Nature addendum
is a gross exaggeration.
There is a long history of obfuscation about the
exposure and illnesses of these miners (three of whom died), as documented, for
example by Rahalkar and Rahalkar (2020) "Lethal pneumonia cases in Mojiang miners (2012) and
the mineshaft could provide important clues to the origin of SARS-CoV-2" and Butler (2020) "Plagues,
pandemics, health security, and the war on nature". Neither of these studies is cited in the WHO-convened
Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2 (including the Annexes), further
demonstrating the biased and incomplete knowledge and selection of the
literature used by the report’s authors.
