World / Chinese woman eats bat despite coronavirus link video surfaces

Footage purporting to show a Chinese woman eating a whole bat at a fancy restaurant has gone viral as the country is ravaged by a new deadly virus believed to have come from the flying mammals. 

A separate trending video purports to show Cantonese-speaking diners preparing to eat soup made with the nocturnal animal. 

The new strain of coronavirus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan last month, has killed at least 25 people, caused illness in more than 800 and caused the city of 11million to be in lockdown. 

The virus, which can cause pneumonia, is poorly understood. Scientists now fear it may have spread to humans from snakes or bats. A leading Chinese virologist who helped tackle the SARS epidemic in Asia in 2003 has warned that a new strain of deadly coronavirus from China could lead to an outbreak at least 10 times worse than the health crisis 17 years ago.

Bats are used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat a series of illnesses, including coughing, malaria and gonorrhea. 

The animal's faeces is also believed to be able to cure eye diseases, according to ancient Chinese medical masterpiece Ben Cao Gang Mu. The first trending video, said to be trending on Weibo and shared by Hong Kong-based Apple Daily, shows a fashionably dressed young woman holding a bat with chopsticks as she nibbled on one of the mammal's wings.

One man can be heard telling the woman in Mandarin: 'Eat the meat! [Don't] eat the skin.'

He added: '[You] should eat the meat on its back.'

The bat was thought to be from a large pot of soup placed in the middle of the table.

The second viral video, posted by influential Chinese blogger Chen Qiushi on Twitter, shows a cooked, grinning bat placed in a large bowl of broth.

'[After] experiencing this matter, can Chinese people give up eating wildlife?' the blogger asked in a post. 

Both videos remain unverified. 

MailOnline has reached out to both bloggers for comments.

A third city in China is going into lockdown as officials battle to stop the spread of the deadly new coronavirus that has killed 25, left hundreds seriously ill and potentially infected thousands. 

Major Lunar New Year events in Beijing have been cancelled, authorities in Ezhou have shut down train stations, and Huanggang has announced it will suspend public buses and trains as well as ordering cinemas and internet cafes to close their doors.

The development comes as Wuhan – the city at the centre of the outbreak – remains in lockdown, with all flights in and outbound cancelled, residents banned from leaving and scenes of chaos as desperate families fight for food supplies. 

Official figures show almost 600 patients have been struck down by the disease - but scientists yesterday warned as many as 10,000 people could have been infected in Wuhan alone. Experts said they couldn't rule out the SARS-like virus already being in the UK. Others have said no virus has spread this far this quickly since SARS in 2003. 

Chinese officials are disinfecting whole streets and parks with clouds of gas and chilling footage has emerged of roadside quarantine tents, hastily erected to isolate suspected cases.  One resident told the BBC the atmosphere in the city felt like 'the end of the world'.

Travellers have spread the coronavirus to seven countries already, including the US. European health officials fear the never-before-seen virus will reach the continent, with the UK and other nations already on high alert.