Coronavirus: Deadly virus COVID-19 may have been bio-engineered in Wuhan lab, claims bombshell report
A new study by researchers from universities in China has raised the question yet again as to whether the new coronavirus originated in the lab.
In addition to origins of natural recombination and intermediate host, the killer coronavirus “probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan,” according to a research team from the South China University of Technology, China; Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan; and Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan.
“In summary, somebody was entangled with the evolution of 2019-nCoV coronavirus,” the researchers conclude in a pre-print version of the paper.
According to the report, some of the authors of this publication also work on related projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. The paper also says that “this work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.”
“The 2019-nCoV coronavirus has caused an epidemic of 28,060 laboratory-confirmed infections in humans including 564 deaths in China by February 6, 2020. Two descriptions of the virus published on Nature this week indicated that the genome sequences from patients were 96% or 89% identical to the Bat CoV ZC45 coronavirus originally found in Rhinolophus affinis. It was critical to study where the pathogen came from and how it passed onto human,” says the study.
The researchers screened the area around the seafood market and identified two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus. Within approximately 280 meters from the market, there was the Wuhan Center for Disease Control & Prevention (WHCDC). WHCDC hosted animals in laboratories for research purposes, one of which was specialized in pathogens collection and identification, says the paper.
“In one of their studies, 155 bats including Rhinolophus affinis were captured in Hubei province, and other 450 bats were captured in Zhejiang province. The expert in the collection was noted in the Author Contributions (JHT). Moreover, he was broadcasted for collecting viruses on nation-wide newspapers and websites in 2017 and 2019. He described that he was once by attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. He knew the extreme danger of the infection so he quarantined himself for 14 days. In another accident, he quarantined himself again because bats peed on him. He was once thrilled for capturing a bat carrying a live tick,” the findings state.
The researchers say that surgery was performed on the caged animals and the tissue samples were collected for DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing. The tissue samples and contaminated trashes were source of pathogens, says the team.
“They were only ~280 meters from the seafood market. The WHCDC was also adjacent to the Union Hospital, where the first group of doctors was infected during this epidemic. It is plausible that the virus leaked around and some of them contaminated the initial patients in this epidemic, though solid proofs are needed in future study,” say researchers in the paper.
The paper further describes that a second laboratory was approximately 12 kilometers from the seafood market and belonged to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. This laboratory reported that the Chinese horseshoe bats were natural reservoirs for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) which caused the 2002-3 pandemic.
“The principle investigator participated in a project which generated a chimeric virus us the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system and reported the potential for human emergence. A direct speculation was that SARS-CoV or its derivative might leak from the laboratory,” they say.
The team recommends that safety levels may need to be reinforced in high-risk biohazardous laboratories. Regulations may be taken to relocate these laboratories far away from the city center and other densely populated places, says the team.
Experts say new coronavirus was not lab-engineered
At a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) on February 13, an expert said that the novel coronavirus could not have been genetically engineered in a lab.
“If you look for evidence of genetic engineering, you can find none whatsoever. It is completely consistent with natural evolution,” said Dr Trevor Bedford, an infectious-disease expert at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He is a computational biologist who studies how viruses evolve and spread.
A source of such speculations was the pre-print of a scientific paper -- Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag -- which was uploaded to website bioRxiv, and later removed. The website now says that the paper has been withdrawn.
“This paper has been withdrawn by its authors. They intend to revise it in response to comments received from the research community on their technical approach and their interpretation of the results. If you have any questions, please contact the corresponding author,” it says.
Bedford, in his presentation at the meeting, also said that “based on the content of my mentions, I feel like I need to further debunk crazy #nCoV2019 / HIV conspiracy preprint.”