The United States has made fresh claims about the likely
origin of SARS-CoV-2 in China, pointing fingers at the Wuhan Institute of
Virology (WIV), which it says was experimenting RaTG13, a bat coronavirus.
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In a newly released fact sheet, the US Department of State
said several researchers at the lab had symptoms related to those of COVID-19
before the first confirmed case.
It also added that the scientists have collaborated on
publications and “secret projects” with China’s military over the years.
“The WIV has engaged in classified research, including
laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the Chinese military since at least
2017,” the fact sheet reads.
There is no known source of the SARS-CoV-2 — which has
killed more than 2 million people — since it was first confirmed in Wuhan in
December 2019.
The WIV, which became a focal point for international
coronavirus research after the 2003 SARS outbreak, has often appeared in the
news as one of the suspected sources for the virus.
In the fact sheet obtained on Wednesday, the US said the lab has been experimenting with the RaTG13, a virus whose name was derived from the bat it was extracted from.
It said while it “does not know exactly where, when, or how
the COVID-19 virus was transmitted initially to humans”, it found three
elements about the virus’s origin “that deserve greater scrutiny”.
“The U.S. government has reason to believe that several
researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first
identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19
and common seasonal illnesses,” it said, adding that this “raises questions
about the credibility of WIV senior researcher Shi Zhengli’s public claim that
there was ‘zero infection’ among the WIV’s staff and students of SARS-CoV-2 or
SARS-related viruses”.
The fact sheet further stated: “The WIV has a published
record of conducting “gain-of-function” research to engineer chimeric viruses.
But the WIV has not been transparent or consistent about its record of studying
viruses most similar to the COVID-19 virus, including “RaTG13,” which it sampled
from a cave in Yunnan Province in 2013 after several miners died of SARS-like
illness.
“Despite the WIV presenting itself as a civilian
institution, the United States has determined that the WIV has collaborated on
publications and secret projects with China’s military. The WIV has engaged in
classified research, including laboratory animal experiments, on behalf of the
Chinese military since at least 2017.”
Chinese authorities have often been accused of trying to
control the narrative about the origin of the novel coronavirus by limiting
access to information.
In December, the BBC reported that Chinese authorities
prevented its team from visiting the laboratory in Wuhan when it attempted to.
Only recently, an investigative team of the World Health
Organisation (WHO) was allowed to visit Wuhan after initial delay from the
Chinese government.
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