TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A startling report from Canada on Thursday (Aug. 8) reveals that Canadian health officials approved the transfer of dangerous virus samples to China in March of 2019, which could potentially be used to advance a dangerous bio-warfare program in the secretive communist state.
Officials from Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) have defended the transfer of Henipavirus and Ebola samples as part of an international public health research campaign. However, experts in the field are raising alarm about the transfer, which is now reportedly at the center of a government investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
A senior scientist working with the Ebola samples at the Winnipeg-based NML, Xiangguo Qiu, was abruptly removed from her position in mid-July. Her firing was made official after the scientist, her husband Keding Cheng, and an unknown number of Chinese students were removed from the laboratory for an unspecified "policy breach" on July 5.
Reports speculate that the removal may have been related to the transfer of the hazardous virus samples to Beijing. A spokeswoman at the Public Health Agency of Canada told Canada.com that the government is looking into the issue as an “administrative matter.”
The report from Canada.com quotes experts in the field of biological warfare who have strong concerns that China could potentially use samples of the Ebola or Henipah viruses to develop biological agents for which only China would possess a vaccine. Although China officially denies it is engaged in biological warfare research, most analysts suspect there is a significant apparatus for such research in the communist country.
Advanced research programs involving the CRISPR gene-editing technology in China is another sign that the regime is pursuing potentially dangerous bio-warfare applications. The U.S. State Department has since 2009 publicly voiced its suspicion that China possesses active bio-weapons programs.