Chinese scientist Shi Zhengli states that the new corona virus that causes Covid-19 is only the tip of the iceberg of the plague that humans will face

The Covid-19 corona virus that spreads throughout the world is believed to have not been fully identified. Wuhan Virology Institute scientist, Professor Shi Zhengli, said his office was still investigating the possibility of an unknown pathogen from this virus. In addition Shi said there were many bats and other wild animals that could potentially be carriers of the virus. Therefore he invited all parties to study the virus carried by wild animals to give an early warning. "The virus that we found is only the tip of the iceberg," Shi was quoted as saying by CGTN on Tuesday (5/26).

Shi is an expert who is constantly researching the relationship of severe respiratory infections (SARS) viruses with bats. Deputy Director of the Wuhan Virology Institute was dubbed the media as "Bat Woman" because of this research. Reporting from the New York Post, Shi warned that there could be more similar global outbreaks if there were no preventive measures.

"If we want to prevent humans from suffering from the next infectious disease outbreak, we must prepare it in advance to study this unknown virus, carried by wild animals in nature and provide early warning," said Shi Zhengli, a leading Chinese scientist specializing in transmission virus from bats.

Shi also warned that studying the current outbreak could help study other outbreaks that might come. "If we don't study viruses, there might be another outbreak," Shi warned. Shi Zhengli himself was often dubbed the "bat woman" by the press because of his research involving the mammal. Shi himself worked in the Wuhan laboratory, a study center that was once suspected by Americans as the center of the spread of the new corona virus in Wuhan.

Whereas the Wuhan Virology Institute was one of the earliest to examine virus samples, namely December 30, 2019. Shi called on all countries and global researchers to strengthen cooperation to solve this pandemic problem. He said with cooperation, the collection of virus samples, laboratory work, and early warning in the wild could run optimally. Moreover, corona identification also requires scientists from various fields and training experience. "So we can understand this virus quickly," Shi said. Shi also said this type of virus was indeed the first time it appeared in the world. He told me on December 30, the Wuhan Virology Institute received samples from pneumonia cases that could not be explained.

After researching, it turns out they did not find the same virus pathogen sequence with other respiratory diseases. Therefore the institute named it the new corona virus. "We sent this genome to the World Health Organization (WHO) on January 12, 2020," Shi said. This institute is an institution that is accused by the United States (US) as the culprit for the emergence of corona. But like Shi, Director of the Wuhan Virology Institute Wang Yanyi said after the examination of the pathogen, it turned out that the virus found was indeed a new type. "We didn't even know the virus existed. How could it be leaked from a laboratory if we never had it," Wang said.

Shi denied that his lab was involved in a pandemic, saying the strain they examined was different from the first Covid-19 cause in Wuhan. For more than a decade Shi had been in and out of caves and up and down mountains in all 28 provinces of China, picking up bat droppings, and taking them to his laboratory in Wuhan for research. His research at the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory produced one of the most comprehensive databases about bat-related viruses in the world. Shi's research team was the first to successfully identify the corona virus. They succeeded in identifying the virus from bat droppings brought from Yunan Province.