Forensic examination of Wuhan Institute of Virology COVID-19 patient specimens from December 2019 reveals gross contamination of the laboratory, including undisclosed research on a lethal BSL-4 pathogen

A Zenodo pre-print entitled, “CONTAMINATION OR VACCINE RESEARCH? RNA Sequencing data of early COVID-19 patient samples show abnormal presence of vectorized H7N9 hemagglutinin segment” has been published. In the paper, a forensic examination of the sequencing data from five COVID-19 bronchial lavage patient specimens reveals that the laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was contaminated with a wide range of viruses, including the Nipah virus, a BSL-4 pathogen with a lethality of 50% to 92%. A video summary of the paper can be found here.

The highlights of the paper are:

• Five patient specimens were sequenced by the WIV in December 2019 and were part of an early report on SARS-CoV-2 published by Dr. Zhengli Shi and colleagues (Nature 579, 270–273 (2020). This paper has been viewed over one million times, making it one of the most highly read paper on the pandemic virus.
• The most abundant contaminant is an undisclosed H7N9 influenza vaccine, which in one specimen is over six-times as abundant as SARS-CoV-2.
• The Nipah virus gene sequences were found in infectious cloning vectors of the type used for genetic manipulation.
• Nineteen other contaminants, including Japanese Encephalitis virus, HIV, human T-cell leukemia virus, and hepatitis delta virus were found.

It is important to investigate why the Wuhan Institute of Virology was extensively contaminated in December 2019 as well as learn more about the undisclosed Influenza Vaccine research and Nipah virus cloning experiments. 

The Zenodo pre-print can be found here: https://zenodo.org/record/5067706#.YPtyyI4zbOg