China delayed publication of Covid-19 gene sequence in early days of pandemic, US congressional panel says
- A Chinese researcher submitted genetic data on December 28, 2019, two weeks before Beijing announced details of the Wuhan coronavirus, lawmakers’ inquiry finds
- The initial genome sequence of the coronavirus, by a team from Fudan University, was published on January 12, 2020
An inquiry led by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s chair, showed that a sequence of Sars-CoV-2 was submitted to GenBank – the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) genetic sequence database operated by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) – by a Chinese researcher on December 28, 2019.
A genetic sequence is a text code denoting a pathogen’s genetic building blocks, and is used to develop diagnostic test kits.
A December 21, 2023, letter from an official at the US Department of Health and Human Services, responding to inquiries by McMorris Rodgers, confirmed that a Chinese researcher, Dr. Lili Ren, submitted to GenBank a gene sequence that was “nearly identical” to the Sars-CoV-2 sequence submitted by another Chinese researcher and published by GenBank on January 12, 2020.
“Following established quality control processes during which NCBI staff review[ed] technical, but not scientific or public health, details, a resubmission request was issued to Lili Ren on December 31, 2019,” said the letter by HHS’s assistant secretary for legislation, Melanie Anne Egorin.
“NIH never received the additional information requested,” Egorin said. “In the interim, another submission to GenBank from a different submitter was received and published on January 12, 2020. That submission … provided the genetic sequence for Sars-CoV-2. The sequence published on January 12, 2020, was nearly identical to the sequence that was submitted by Lili Ren.”
