US officials warned in 2018 that Wuhan lab's study on bat coronaviruses posed risk of 'new SARS-like pandemic'
Two years before the COVID-19 pandemic, US officials had warned about inadequate safety at a Wuhan lab, which was studying bats and their potential to cause a “new SARS-like pandemic,” claims a new report.
Science diplomats from the US sent two warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which they said was conducting "risky" studies on coronaviruses from bats, according to the report published by The Washington Post.
Two diplomatic cables were sent to Washington, which were categorized as "sensitive", but "unclassified".
“The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) lab and proposed more attention and help,” it says. The report claims that the first cable, which was obtained by the Post, also warned that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic.
“In January 2018, the US Embassy in Beijing took the unusual step of repeatedly sending US science diplomats to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which had in 2015 become China’s first laboratory to achieve the highest level of international bioresearch safety. WIV issued a news release in English about the last of these visits, which occurred on March 27, 2018. The US delegation was led by Jamison Fouss, the consul general in Wuhan, and Rick Switzer, the embassy’s counselor of environment, science, technology, and health. Last week, WIV erased that statement from its website, though it remains archived on the Internet,” says the article.
According to a January 19, 2018, cable, during their interactions with scientists at the laboratory, the US officials noted a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators at the lab, who are required to safely operate such a high-containment laboratory.
“The cables argued that the US should give the Wuhan lab further support, mainly because its research on bat coronaviruses was important but also dangerous,” says the report. The Chinese researchers at WIV were already getting help from the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch and other US organizations, but the Chinese requested additional assistance, says the article.
Scientists say it is likely that the SARS-COV-2 virus, which causes the COVID-19 disease, was passed from bats to an animal species that then passed it on to humans. There have been allegations that the COVID-19 virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Many scientists have rubbished such rumors. There is currently no evidence to state that the deadly COVID-19 virus escaped from a lab, say experts. An analysis by researchers from the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research, US, said the virus is a product of natural evolution.
The cable also called attention to Zheng-Li Shi, the head of the research project. Zhengli published a study in November 2017, which found that “genetic recombination between viral strains in bats” may have produced the "direct evolutionary ancestor" of the strain that caused a deadly outbreak of SARS in humans. In the study, researchers identified 11 new strains of the SARS virus and sequenced their full genomes to uncover their evolutionary relationships.
Genome analysis revealed that the newly-identified bat strains, as well as several strains identified in a previous study of the same bat cave, contained all the essential genetic building blocks of the human SARS coronavirus. Besides, the study also revealed that various SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoVs), capable of using human ACE2 (the receptor of SARS-CoV in humans), are still circulating among bats in this region. Thus, the risk of spillover into people and the emergence of a disease similar to SARS is possible, they concluded.
According to the Post article, “most importantly, the cable states that the researchers also showed that various SARS-like coronaviruses can interact with ACE2, the human receptor identified for SARS-coronavirus. This finding strongly suggests that SARS-like coronaviruses from bats can be transmitted to humans to cause SARS-like disease.”
“From a public health perspective, this makes the continued surveillance of SARS-like coronaviruses in bats and study of the animal-human interface critical to future emerging coronavirus outbreak prediction and prevention,” the report adds.
Shi and other WIV researchers have denied that the lab was the origin of the novel coronavirus. “The cable was a warning shot. They were begging people to pay attention to what was going on,” according to a US official quoted by the Post.