A new report suggests that the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is believed to be the true origins of the coronavirus that caused the global pandemic, "appears to have carried out similar research on influenza."
The National Pulse found a 2016 article posted on the Chinese-language website of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a laboratory with links to Chinese military and is believed to be the true source of COVID. The article showed how researchers sought various avian influenza viruses or AIV that had "zoonotic potential with human infections."
The article titled "Scientist in WIV achieves a progress in study on reassortment of influenza viruses" dated February 6, 2016 showed that Prof. Qiyun Zhu in Lanzhou Veterinary Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Prof. Hualan Chen in Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Prof. Jie Cui in WIV, worked together to observe AIV in ducks, geese, and "environment of a community in Hunan province, China" between 2014 to 2015.
According to the article, the scientists isolated several "co-circulated AIVs," called H3N2, H3N8, and H5N6, as well as a "a novel reassortant: H3N6," an AIV they believed was derived from H5N6, which has "been shown to have zoonotic potential with human infections." Researchers said that studies with "mammalian cell lines and a mouse model" showed that four selected AIVs of duck or goose origin can infect cells but have low pathogenicity in mice.
Researchers then suggested a "potential co-circulation of multiple subtypes including H5N6 in local area may result in the production of novel subtypes such as H3N6 by gene reassortment." They concluded that southern China's duck and goose farms "provide an ecosystem for co-circulation of multiple AIVs and facilitate the generation of novel reassortants such as H3N6 that could potentially infect mammals."
The theory that COVID began as a laboratory leak at the Wuhan research facility was sparked anew this week when researchers studying soil samples collected in Antarctica between late 2018 and early 2019 in a completely unrelated research project discovered "unusual coronavirus mutations" which they believed may "bridge the gap between original bat coronavirus and one that jumped to humans," the Daily Mail reported.
The latest findings were from researchers at the Eotvos Lorand University and the University of Veterinary Medicine in Budapest, but the reports have not yet been formally reviewed by other scientists. The researchers were looking at online DNA databases in January 2021 when they observed a probable cross-contamination of the soil samples.
These soil samples were traced back to a study by researchers at the University of Science Technology of China in late 2018 and early 2019. This Chinese research looked at bacteria from penguins and had them collecting a dozen soil samples on King George Island, Antarctica, which were sent back to Sangon, Shanghai, where it was sequenced in December 2019. Three of the samples were found to be contaminated with fragments of coronaviruses.
Professor Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle confirmed that the soil samples contained "three key mutations which brought the bat coronaviruses closer to the first human strain, Wuhan-Hu-1."
