Mouse bite with COVID causes alert in Taiwan

A mouse bite is at the center of an investigation into a possible new COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan, after a worker at a high-security laboratory was confirmed as the island’s first local case in more than a month. .

The woman in her 20s tested positive for COVID this week after coming into contact with the virus during her work at Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s main research institute, in mid-November, Health Minister Chen Shih said. -chung, at a quickly organized briefing on Thursday night. The worker had not traveled abroad recently and had received two doses of the vaccine from Moderna Inc.

In a briefing on Friday, Chen confirmed that the woman had been bitten on two separate occasions by a COVID-infected laboratory mouse, but said more research was needed to determine whether the bites had been the source of transmission of the virus. Authorities believe it is probably infected with the delta variant.

The lab’s leak threatens to undermine Taiwan’s hard-won success in eradicating COVID outbreaks and underscores the difficulty of eliminating the pathogen, a goal that some countries, including mainland China and Hong Kong, are still pursuing.

Before Thursday’s infection, the last confirmed local case from Taiwan was on November 5. While maintaining strict border entry and quarantine measures, the government has gradually eased restrictions on business and entertainment in recent months, and national activity has largely normalized.

Taiwan has reported just over 14,500 internal COVID-19 cases and 848 deaths since the start of the pandemic. No new internal cases were reported on Friday.

The health authorities identified 94 people who had been in contact with the laboratory worker since she was infected, mainly colleagues and close friends, and placed them in quarantine. Since then, 80 of them have tested negative and she quit her job earlier this month.

The lab worker’s infection is unlikely to trigger a new widespread outbreak, as most of the contacts tested negative, Chen said Friday.

Animal transmission

The woman worked at the Academia Sinica Genomics Research Center, which has one of the 18 biosafety level 3 laboratories in Taiwan, the second highest safety classification. Research conducted in the laboratory included the collection and spread of pathogens, cell-based immunological and microbiological tests, and evaluation of the efficacy of vaccines and adjuvants in small animal models, according to its website.

According to available information, the risk of animals transmitting COVID to people is considered low, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which have said that more studies are needed to understand whether and in what way the virus could affect different animals. Although rare, some coronaviruses that infect animals can spread to people before being transmitted through person-to-person contact, the CDC said, such as what happened with SARS-CoV-2, which likely originated in the bats

Since the pandemic began, there is no evidence that animals have played a significant role in the spread of COVID, the CDC noted.