Footage of Bats Kept in Wuhan Lab Fuels Scrutiny Over Its Research

Security personnel gather near the entrance of the Wuhan Institute of Virology during a visit by the World Health Organization team in Wuhan in China's Hubei province, China, on Feb. 3, 2021. Ng Han Guan/AP Photo

Official Chinese state-approved footage from four years ago showing bats being kept at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) has further fueled scrutiny of the research conducted at the secretive facility.

A 2017 promotional video featured on the website of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), a top Chinese state-run research institute that administers the WIV, showed live bats held in cages inside the lab. In it, a researcher wearing blue surgical gloves was holding a bat and feeding it a worm.