The Chinese virology institute at the centre of US allegations that it may have been the source of the coronavirus pandemic has three live strains of bat coronavirus on-site, however, none matches the new global contagion, its director has said.
Scientists think Covid-19which was first reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan and has killed more than 340,000 people worldwideoriginated in bats and could have been transmitted to people via another mammal.
However, the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology told state broadcaster CGTN that claims made by US President Donald Trump and others that the coronavirus could have leaked from the facility were "pure fabrication".
In the interview broadcast last Saturday night, Dr Wang Yanyi said the centre has "isolated and obtained some coronaviruses from bats". She stated that "now we've three strains of live viruses... However, their highest similarity to Sars-CoV-2 reaches only 79.8 per cent", referring to the strain that causes Covid-19.
One of their research teams, led by Professor Shi Zhengli, has been researching bat coronaviruses since 2004 and focused on the "source tracing of Sars", the strain behind the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus outbreak nearly two decades ago.
"We know the whole genome of Sars-CoV-2 is only 80 per cent similar to that of Sars. It's an obvious difference," Dr Wang said. "So, in Prof Shi's past research, they did not pay attention to such viruses that are less similar to the Sars virus."
Conspiracy theories that the biosafety laboratory was involved in the outbreak swirled online for months before Mr Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought the rumours into the mainstream by claiming there is proof the virus came from the institute.
The United States and Australia have in recent weeks called for an investigation into the source of the pandemic.
Chinese scientists have said the virus first emerged at a market selling live animals in Wuhan, though officials in Beijing more recently cast doubt on its origins.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said the US has offered no evidence to support the "speculative" claims about the Wuhan lab.
The lab has said it received samples of the then-unknown virus on Dec 30, determined the viral genome sequence on Jan 2, and submitted information on the pathogen to the WHO on Jan 11.
NOT POSSIBLE
Like everyone else, we didn't even know the virus existed. How could it have leaked from our lab when we never had it?
DR WANG YANYI, director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, on claims that Sars-CoV-2 leaked from its laboratory.
Dr Wang said that before the lab received the samples, its team had never "encountered, researched or kept the virus".
"In fact, like everyone else, we didn't even know the virus existed," she said. "How could it have leaked from our lab when we never had it?"
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE