E-Paper
China deleted Covid data ‘gold mine’ in possible cover-up: Study
The sequences from Huanan Seafood Market that were the focus of the joint report prepared by the WHO and China are not “fully representative of the viruses in Wuhan early in the epidemic,” the report said.
China deleted early data on novel coronavirus Sars-CoV-2 in a possible attempt to conceal its existence and, therefore, impeding the investigation into its origins, a researcher has claimed in a new study. According to a scientific paper, over a dozen coronavirus test sequences that were taken during the early months of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic were removed from an international database used to track the virus' evolution.
"The fact that such an informative data set was deleted has implications beyond those gleaned directly from the recovered sequences. Samples from early outpatients in Wuhan are a gold mine for anyone seeking to understand the spread of the virus," the author said.
Jesse Bloom, a virologist and evolutionary biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, said in the report that he identified a data set containing Sars-CoV-2 sequences that had been deleted from the National Institutes of Health's Sequence Read Archive. For the study, Bloom recovered the deleted files from the Google Cloud and reconstructed partial sequences of 13 viruses from the initial outbreak.
Also Read | What the world wants China to disclose in Wuhan lab leak probe
The report suggests that the sequences from Huanan Seafood Market that were the focus of the joint report prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO) and China are not “fully representative of the viruses in Wuhan early in the epidemic.” According to Bloom's research, Sars-Cov-2 was circulating in Wuhan before it was detected at local wet markets, including the Huanan Seafood Market.
“There is no plausible scientific reason for the deletion...It therefore seems likely the sequences were deleted to obscure their existence,” the report said.
“Particularly in light of the directive that labs destroy early samples...and multiple orders requiring approval of publications on [Covid-19], this suggests a less than wholehearted effort to trace early spread of the epidemic,” it added.
The report titled ‘Recovery of Deleted Deep Sequencing Data Sheds More Light on the Early Wuhan SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic’ has not been peer-reviewed yet and is available on a pre-print server.
In a statement on Wednesday, NIH confirmed that some of the earliest samples of coronavirus in China were removed from the international database where they were initially stored at the request of Chinese researchers. The researcher asked that the data be removed “to avoid version control issues”, saying the sequence information had been updated and was being submitted to another database, according to the US agency.
“Submitting investigators hold the rights to their data and can request withdrawal of the data,” the agency said. “NIH can’t speculate on motive beyond the investigator’s stated intentions.”
The mystery around the source of Covid-19 has further intensified after a series of revelations gave the lab-leak theory a fillip. Last week, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said China will face 'isolation in the international community' if Beijing does not cooperate with a further probe into the origin of the coronavirus pandemic.
