Last month a female employee at Taiwan’s top research institute, Academia Sinica, fell ill with Covid-19. And now health officials are anxiously trying to work out how exactly she contracted the virus.
The lab worker was bitten by Covid-infected mice
Thus far, health officials have confirmed that the female lab worker who tested positive had been bitten twice by Covid-19 infected mice.
However, they say that they are still investigating whether this was the actual cause of the infection or if it was picked up “elsewhere in the lab“.
“Whether it is from the workplace or community, we believe the possibility of infection from the workplace is higher because we have zero confirmed infections in the community,” health minister Chen Shih-Chung told reporters.
“As for inside the workplace, whether it is in the office or laboratory, we determined the laboratory has a higher risk. But whether the infection is from the (mouse) bite or the environment, we need to investigate further,” he added.
It has been reported that the infected lab worker has been double vaccinated with Moderna, and has not recently travelled. And The Academia Sinica lab is also rated as having the second-highest bio-safety security level.
Taiwan’s first Covid-19 case in a while
This is the first incident in a while for Taiwan. Thanks to most of their borders being closed and strict quarantines, the island has managed to stay “comparatively coronavirus-free”. It also defeated a major local outbreak earlier in 2021 that started with infected pilots.
Taiwan even won global praise at the early stages of the pandemic for the speed with which it “sounded the alarm” over what lied ahead and for keeping its locals safe.