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Coronavirus: Scientists hit back at rumours humans engineered the deadly contagion
- Researchers point to several genetic clues indicating the virus responsible for a deadly epidemic evolved naturally
- Study suggests two possible paths of evolution
Reading Time:4 minutes
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A team of researchers has hit back at rumours that the coronavirus that emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year was engineered.
In a paper posted on the scientific online forum Virological on Monday, the scientists – who include top epidemiologists W. Ian Lipkin from Columbia University; Edward Holmes from the University of Sydney; and Kristian Andersen of Scripps Research – said there were crucial genetic clues indicating that the coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, was not created in a laboratory.
Despite scientists’ repeated efforts at debunking, conspiracy theories about the still-unknown origins of the virus have been rife.
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Most are based on the idea that the virus emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where researchers have built one of the world’s biggest databases of bat-related viruses and were the first to identify the new coronavirus as directly related to a wild strain found in bats.
The speculation also prompted the institute’s lead researcher, Shi Zhengli, to say in a post on the social media platform WeChat: “I swear with my life, [the virus] has nothing to do with the lab.”
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