BEIJING, China | Did he let the coronavirus escape? The Wuhan Institute of Virology is targeted by this hypothesis, promoted by the former government of Donald Trump, but deemed “extremely unlikely” in the new joint WHO and Chinese expert report.
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This text, a copy of which AFP obtained on Monday, favors the hypothesis of transmission of the virus to humans via an animal infected by a bat.
Here are some questions about the Wuhan Institute of Virology (central China), the city where the coronavirus was first detected at the end of 2019.
What are its facilities?
This public institute has the largest collection of virus strains in Asia, with 1,500 specimens, according to its website.
Since 2012, it has had a high-security P3 laboratory (for “class 3 pathogen”) which studies many viruses, in particular coronaviruses.
The director of this laboratory is Shi Zhengli, a specialist in work on bat coronaviruses and sometimes nicknamed the “Chinese Batwoman”.
The Institute of Virology also has a P4 (for the most dangerous pathogens). A laboratory with even greater security, which can harbor strains like Ebola – highly fatal.
Formally opened in 2018 and visited the previous year by the former French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, this P4 was created with the collaboration of France.
What are its researchers doing?
Equipped with full suits, in a workspace designed to avoid any leakage, the researchers from Wuhan are studying different pathogens. Objective: to be able to react quickly to the appearance of infectious diseases.
Researchers have been the authors of numerous studies on the links between bats and the emergence of these diseases in China.
They also helped to better understand the new coronavirus after its appearance in Wuhan.
In February 2020, their work was published in a scientific journal. Conclusion: The Sars-CoV-2 genome sequence is 96% similar to that of a bat coronavirus.
Are they cut off from the world?
No. They regularly collaborate with foreign scientists.
Two researchers from Wuhan, for example, participated in 2015 in an international study with several American universities, during which a pathogen was created in order to analyze the threat of a virus similar to SARS.
The institute collaborated with EcoHealth Alliance, an association based in the United States and specializing in disease prevention, and whose president Peter Daszak was among the experts sent in January by the World Health Organization (WHO) to Wuhan. .
Is a leak possible?
No evidence supports this hypothesis.
Before returning his apron as head of American diplomacy, Mike Pompeo had again pointed the finger at the Wuhan institute in mid-January.
“The United States government has reason to believe that several researchers inside (the establishment) fell ill in the fall of 2019, before the first case of the epidemic was identified, with compatible symptoms to those, both from COVID-19, and common seasonal illnesses, ”he said.
According to Washington post, the United States Embassy in Beijing, after visits to the institute, alerted the American authorities in 2018 to security measures they considered insufficient.
The director of the Institute of Virology and the Chinese government have categorically denied that these laboratories are the source of the coronavirus.
At the end of their mission to China, the experts sent by the WHO appeared to rule out the possibility that the virus could have escaped from the Institute of Virology, deeming it “highly unlikely”.
A hypothesis is now deemed “extremely unlikely” in the joint report of WHO and Chinese experts.