Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were investigating coronaviruses in high-risk bat species from Laos prior to the pandemic, leaked documents revealed.
The findings lend more weight to the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 leaked out from a Wuhan laboratory before causing a global pandemic, according to Daily Mail. They also suggest that it might be possible that both the bat origin theory of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lab-leak theory could be simultaneously true.
According to a Sunday report from The Telegraph, scientists in September came across a coronavirus strain named Banal-52 in Laos. Banal-52 shared 96.8 percent of its genome with SARS-CoV-2.
While, according to the Telegraph, the discovery of Banal-52 and its similarity with Sars-CoV-2 strengthened hypotheses which argued that the source of the pandemic was a natural spillover instead of a lab escape, it raised questions of how Banal-52 could have somehow given rise to SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan over 1,000 miles away.
Leaked emails between EcoHealth Alliance and U.S. government funders provide some answers to those questions, according to reporting from the Telegraph.
Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology were investigating coronaviruses in high-risk bat species from Laos prior to the pandemic, leaked documents revealed.
The findings lend more weight to the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 leaked out from a Wuhan laboratory before causing a global pandemic, according to Daily Mail. They also suggest that it might be possible that both the bat origin theory of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lab-leak theory could be simultaneously true.
According to a Sunday report from The Telegraph, scientists in September came across a coronavirus strain named Banal-52 in Laos. Banal-52 shared 96.8 percent of its genome with SARS-CoV-2.
While, according to the Telegraph, the discovery of Banal-52 and its similarity with Sars-CoV-2 strengthened hypotheses which argued that the source of the pandemic was a natural spillover instead of a lab escape, it raised questions of how Banal-52 could have somehow given rise to SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan over 1,000 miles away.
Leaked emails between EcoHealth Alliance and U.S. government funders provide some answers to those questions, according to reporting from the Telegraph.
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