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A Chinese virologist famous for her research on coronavirus in bats shared new tests that suggest the virus did not come from her Wuhan laboratory.
Shi Zhengli, deputy director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, recently re-examined blood samples taken in 2012 from four miners who fell ill after working in bat caves in southwest China.
The results showed that none of them had been infected with Covid-19, the South China Morning Post reported.
Its update appears to contradict the Donald Trump administration’s allegations that the virus, which has infected nearly 58 million people worldwide, originated from his Wuhan laboratory.
The findings suggest that Shi and his team had not collected samples of SARS-CoV-2 – which causes the coronavirus – prior to the outbreak in Wuhan.
Shi Zhengli (pictured), deputy director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, recently re-examined blood samples taken eight years ago from four miners who fell ill after working in bat caves in southwest China.
The virologist previously insisted that the characteristics of the viruses he worked with did not match the genetics of Covid-19.
The miners were infected with an unknown respiratory disease after cleaning up bat droppings from a copper mine in Yunnan province in April 2012.
“We suspected that the patients were infected with an unknown virus. Therefore, we and other groups sampled animals including bats, rats, and musk shrews in or around the cave, ”Shi said.
One such sample contained the bat coronavirus RaTG13, it was claimed.
His update added: “In 2020, we compared the Sars-CoV-2 sequence to our unpublished bat coronavirus sequences and found that it shared 96.2% identity with RaTG13. “
Scientists said the 3.8% difference in strains could mean the bat coronavirus took decades to mutate into Sars-CoV-2.
Shi has already warned that new viruses found around the world are “just the tip of the iceberg”.
The P4 laboratory in Wuhan, capital of the Chinese province of Hubei, where Shi Zhengli has been studying the coronavirus in bats since 2004
Shi’s update appears to contradict the Donald Trump administration’s allegations that the virus, which has infected nearly 58 million people worldwide, originated from his Wuhan laboratory. Pictured: Wuhan Institute of Virology, laboratory P4
He also called for greater international cooperation in the fight against epidemics, despite allegations that China has covered up the danger posed by the coronavirus.
In May, he insisted that virus research requires governments and scientists to be transparent and cooperative with their findings.
He added that it was “very unfortunate” that science was politicized.
Speaking to CCTN, Shi said: “If we want to prevent humans from suffering from the next outbreak of infectious diseases, we need to move on to learn about these unknown viruses carried by wild animals into the wild. and give early warnings.
“If we don’t study them, there could be another epidemic.
President Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have continually suggested that Covid-19 is linked to the Wuhan laboratory.
The allegations were dropped by both Beijing and Shi.
The virologist previously insisted that the characteristics of the viruses he worked with do not match the genetics of Covid-19.
Writing on social media, Shi said he would “swear on my life” that the lab had nothing to do with the pandemic and that the virus was first discovered in late 2019.
Wang Yanyi, director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, added that the allegations that the virus came from the Wuhan laboratory were “pure fabrication”.
Shi Zhengli’s research is said to have started in 2004 to study the SARS outbreak.
He has since studied all types of bats and made a breakthrough in 2013 when he identified bat feations 96.2% identical to Sars-CoV-2.
He also reportedly researched whether the coronavirus could pass from one species to another and in 2015 confirmed that it was possible for a SARS-like virus to pass from bats to humans.
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