“POLIOVIRUS likely Leaked by a BioLab”. SCIENCE Journal relaunches another “Detective Story” on Wuhan Institute of Virology
Introduction by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio
I have never dealt with the Polio virus, except vaguely and with an approach of curiosity, focusing in particular on the adverse reactions that already emerged from the well-known traditional vaccines considered by the scientific and medical community to be fundamental to eradicate this dangerous epidemic.
Therefore we limit ourselves to republishing an interesting article from the journal Science, one of the most authoritative in the world, rather than chasing blogs relaunched on social media on alleged Poliovirus lab-leak from Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Since we are talking about virus samples preserved in the Pasteur Institute in Paris and then isolated by the WIV, we suggest to scientific journalists that they should ask for more details from Professor Jean-Claude Manuguerra, Director of Research and head of the Environment and Infectious Risks Unit, as well as head of the Biological Emergency Intervention Unit (CIBU) and deputy head of the French National Reference Center for Antiviruses, at the ‘Institut Pasteur in France.
Why? Because, through EpiSARS EU grant (EC funded, 2004-2007), he managed a «collaborative projects with the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai» since 2004 until 2010…
And later, in the almost grotesque paradox of real conspiracies orchestrated by the WHO, he was appointed by director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to the Task Force charged with discovering the origin of the SARS virus in China, precisely by controlling the Wuhan laboratory where Manuguerra had worked…
Poliovirus that infected a Chinese child in 2014 may have leaked from a lab
by Kai Kupferschmidt – originally published on Science journal
All links to previous Gospa News articles have been added in the aftermath, for the clear connections with the topics covered
Researchers at the Pasteur Institute in Paris working under strict biosafety conditions recently opened an old box that contained a virological time capsule: four poliovirus samples, each with a handwritten label on the vial, sent to the institute more than 60 years earlier by Albert Sabin, a giant in the field of poliovirus research.
The viruses had to be destroyed, as part of a global campaign to get rid of old poliovirus samples. But first, the Pasteur team would sequence them to preserve their genetic information.
Now, a paper about those sequences, published in Virus Evolution in July, has raised an unexpected and troubling possibility: A poliovirus that infected a 4-year-old child in China in 2014 may have originated in a research laboratory or a vaccine production facility.
The exact source of that virus is unclear, as is the route by which it infected the child, and the authors are careful not to point fingers. But the paper underscores the fact that accidental releases of poliovirus are remarkably common.
An Interesting Detective Story
“It is an interesting detective story,” says Mike Famulare, a systems epidemiologist at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
who has studied polio but was not involved in the work.
And because the child’s virus was analyzed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the finding has, inevitably, become politicized: On social media and in conservative outlets, advocates of a lab-leak origin of the COVID-19 pandemic have seized on it to suggest WIV had “another” lab release—even though there is no evidence the virus came from that institute.
Polio was one of the most feared childhood diseases in the first half of the 20th century, paralyzing hundreds of thousands of children every year. Cases plummeted after the development in the 1950s of the injected, inactivated polio vaccine by Jonas Salk, followed by a live, attenuated vaccine given orally by Sabin. Today, the disease is on the cusp of eradication: Two of the three original poliovirus strains are already gone, and the third one is circulating only in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
To reduce the risk of future outbreaks, researchers have committed to destroying the untold numbers of poliovirus samples held in labs around the world, and even old stool samples that might harbor the virus. Often, the viruses are sequenced before destruction, especially historic strains that were studied before genetic sequencing was available.
Sabin sent the four samples to Pasteur virologist and 1965 Nobel laureate André Lwoff back in 1960. They had been adapted in the lab to grow at temperatures below that of the human body, and Sabin thought they might be a good basis for vaccines. Lwoff was investigating what effect fever might have on pathogens. The samples are “an important legacy for science and public health,” the institute wrote in an email to Science.
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Now, Maël Bessaud, a poliovirus researcher at Pasteur, and his colleagues have found that one of the strains, called Glenn, is very similar genetically to a poliovirus called Saukett A, one of a group of polioviruses called Saukett that were isolated in the United States in the 1950s and are still used today to produce inactivated polio vaccine. But surprisingly, Glenn is also close to a virus isolated in 2014 from a 4-year-old child in central China.
Wuhan Institute researchers had already sequenced Poliovirus
WIV researchers had already sequenced that virus, which they named WIV14. In 2017 they reported it was closely related to a strain named Sabin 3, which is used to make oral polio vaccines.
The live virus in oral vaccines can continue to circulate and mutate, and the WIV team concluded that a Sabin 3 virus used for immunization ultimately evolved into WIV14.
To better understand what had happened, the Pasteur team also sequenced Saukett A, whose genome was only partially known. They discovered that WIV14 differed from Saukett A in only 70 nucleotides, versus more than 800 nucleotide differences with Sabin 3. That means WIV14 does not derive from Sabin 3, “but rather from a strain very close to Saukett A or from Saukett A itself,” the paper says.
It’s possible, the authors write, that the child’s sample was somehow contaminated with Saukett A in the lab or elsewhere. But if the child was really infected with WIV14, it could have remained so similar to Saukett A only if it lay dormant for decades, either in a natural reservoir like the permafrost or—more likely with a strain known to be used in vaccine production—in a freezer at a facility handling this virus. Then it was somehow released.
If such an accident happened, it didn’t necessarily occur in China, the authors write: The release could have happened “anywhere in the world,” before the virus was detected in China.
“At this point, the authors do not favor any of those scenarios because they consider there is no scientific argument supporting one versus another,” a Pasteur media officer wrote in an email to Science.
Famulare agrees, but other researchers lean toward the leak theory. A mistake at a testing lab is always a possibility, says Adam Lauring, an evolutionary virologist at the University of Michigan who edited the paper at Virus Evolution. But it seems more likely that the virus leaked from a production facility, he says: “I am pretty convinced.”
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Expert of Global Polio Eradication Iniziative agrees a Lab Leak likely
Roland Sutter, who headed polio research at the Global Polio Eradication Initiative until 2020, agrees a lab leak seems more likely, but not necessarily at a vaccine production facility.
Saukett polio strains are used to manufacture inactivated polio vaccines in Europe, but manufacturers in China, Japan, and South Korea all use attenuated Sabin strains in their inactivated polio vaccines, he says. There are other potential sources, Sutter says, such as universities that teach virology. The Saukett poliovirus strain, one of the easiest to handle, “is probably still being used in many places for that purpose,” he says.
It’s “terribly important” to get to the bottom of any leak, he adds, saying he wouldn’t be surprised if the paper had already triggered an investigation in China. “Of course, the outcome of such an investigation may never see the light of day.”
The Wuhan institute, where WIV14 was sequenced, is at the center of allegations that the COVID-19 pandemic was the result of a lab leak. But there is no evidence that WIV14 originated at WIV, Lauring says. “Unfortunately … people will speak of this as a ‘lab leak’ and jump to conclusions,” he says. “All they did here was isolate a virus and sequence it and upload it.” Any lab leak would have occurred before that, and probably elsewhere. WIV did not respond to a request for comment.
Perhaps because of the sensitivity, many virologists and polio experts contacted by Science declined to comment or did not respond. Pasteur answered questions by email but did not make the paper’s authors available for an interview.
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If the virus did escape from a lab or a vaccine manufacturer, it would hardly be the first time. In the 2000s, a lab strain was suspected of causing disease in several children in India. In 2014, a vaccine production facility in Belgium accidentally released billions of poliovirus particles into the sewage system, but no human infections were found.
In 2017, a worker at a vaccine production facility in the Netherlands tested positive for poliovirus after an accidental leak in a vaccine production room. (He did not get sick but was isolated until he no longer shed the virus.) Another employee at the same facility became infected in 2022.
Vaccine plants grow large amounts of virus, boosting the chances of escape, Lauring says, and the virus is hardy. “So lots of virus, a little gets out, and it can persist,” he says.
Lauring says he was often worried himself when he studied poliovirus evolution, despite the many safety precautions. “When I had my first child, prior to his receiving his vaccine,” he says. “I even used to strip my clothes at my front door and not wear my shoes inside.”
Kai Kupferschmidt – originally published on Science journal
All links to previous Gospa News articles have been added in the aftermath, for the clear connections with the topics covered
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