Mouse bite may have infected Taiwan lab worker with Covid
Health officials in Taiwan are investigating whether a mouse bite may have been responsible for a laboratory worker testing positive for Covid, the island’s first local infection in weeks.
The authorities are scrambling to work out how the employee at Academia Sinica, the country’s top research institute, contracted the virus last month.
Thanks to largely closed borders and strict quarantines, Taiwan has stayed comparatively Covid-free, including defeating a large local outbreak this year that began with pilots.
Health officials have confirmed that the lab worker had been bitten twice by mice that had been infected with the virus. They were still trying to work out if that was the cause of the infection or if it was picked up elsewhere in the high-security facility.
“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,” the health minister, Chen Shih-chung, said.
“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.”
The lab worker had no recent travel history and received two doses of the Moderna vaccine. The Academia Sinica lab has the second-highest bio-safety security level.
The last confirmed local case in Taiwan was on 5 November. Almost 100 close contacts of the worker have been traced and placed in quarantine.
Taiwan won global praise early in the pandemic for the speed with which it sounded the alarm over the disease and managed to stamp it out locally. It has recorded more than 14,500 domestic cases and 848 deaths, the vast majority during the outbreak this year that was quashed.