January 19, 2024
2 mins read

‘Chinese Lab Mapped Covid Virus Weeks Prior’


Reports from US HHS documents shared with Congress raise concerns about China’s transparency on the virus, questioning what China knew, when, and the time lost in developing tests and treatments….reports Asian Lite News

A team of Chinese researchers identified and mapped SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the deadly Covid-19 pandemic and continues to infect people worldwide, at least two weeks before the country officially informed the world about the virus, according to media reports.

The reports, based on federal documents from the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and shared with a US congressional committee, raise concerns about China’s transparency on the virus — how much China knew about the virus and since when, and the time lost to develop tests and treatment to fight the virus.

The congressional investigators said that a Chinese researcher in Beijing uploaded an incomplete sequence of the virus’s structure to a US government-run database in December 2019 — a period where Chinese officials were publicly describing the disease outbreak in Wuhan as a viral pneumonia “of unknown cause”, the Wall Street Journal reported.

On December 28, 2019, Lili Ren, a virologist at the Institute of Pathogen Biology of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences in Beijing, submitted a genetic sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to GenBank — a publicly accessible database of genetic sequences overseen by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Three days later GenBank informed Ren in an email that her submission was incomplete and requested that she provide the complete information, Washington Post reported.

As Ren did not submit the requested annotations, her submission was deleted from GenBank’s processing queue on January 16, 2020.

A “nearly identical” genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 was submitted to GenBank by a separate team of Chinese researchers and was published on January 12, 2020, revealed a letter sent by Melanie Anne Egorin, a senior official at the HHS, sent to House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders and that was made public on Wednesday.

According to public health experts who reviewed the documents, this was a missed opportunity to learn more about the virus at the beginning of the global health emergency, the Washington Post reported.

The failure to publish the genetic sequence submitted by Ren is “retroactively painful,” Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, was quoted as saying.

Bloom noted that the genetic sequences may have expedited new tests and vaccines to combat the coronavirus.

“That two weeks would have made a tangible difference in quite a few people’s lives,” Bloom said.

More than three years after the pandemic, the origins of Covid-19 remain unclear. It has been the subject of a political and scientific debate with scientists and politicians globally contending that the source of the coronavirus was exposure to an infected animal or an event at a laboratory.

“I don’t think this submission tells us anything about the origin of SARS-CoV-2,” Bloom said. “What I think this shows … (is) the Chinese government wasn’t immediately transparent about how quickly they learned about the cause of this outbreak.”

ALSO READ: Pakistan PM Cuts Short Davos Visit

Previous Story

Pakistan PM Cuts Short Davos Visit

Next Story

Bhutan Secures Spot as Top Destination For Chinese Travellers

Latest from -Top News

Pakistan’s Shadow War in Balochistan

At least 50 killed by Pakistan-backed death squads in Balochistan in April, says HRCB — toll expected to rise in May….reports Asian Lite News The Human Rights Council of Balochistan (HRCB) reported

Russia, Ukraine Resume Talks

The upcoming talks follow a significant hiatus in diplomatic engagement between the two nations, which have been locked in a brutal conflict since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 Russia and

UN Pays Tribute to Indian Soldiers

Thursday was observed as the 77th UN Peacekeepers Day, honouring the work of 61,353 peacekeepers, of whom 5,375 hailed from India….reports Asian Lite News Brigadier Amitabh Jha and Havildar Sanjay Singh, who

Modi’s New Warfare Playbook

Modi has upended the old playbook and India and Pakistan are entering dangerous new territory where nuclear deterrence is no longer a guarantee against conventional conflict…writes Collins Chong Yew Keat The India-Pakistan
Go toTop

Don't Miss

China’s Unreliability in Climate Fight

Would those who kill human beings hesitate to kill plants

US shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon

The US described the balloon an “unacceptable” violation of US