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Coronavirus pandemic
ChinaScience

Jury still out on lab-leak Covid-19 origins, researchers say in Lancet letter

  • Signatories call for further investigation of controversial theory and say there is not enough evidence yet to support the natural origins hypothesis
  • The host pathway from bats to humans has not been identified, they say

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Further investigation is needed into the possibility that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory, a group of researchers says. Photo: Shutterstock
Eduardo Baptista
A group of scientists have urged more research on the controversial theory that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory, issuing the call in a letter in the medical journal The Lancet on Friday.
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The letter was signed by 16 virologists, biologists and biosecurity specialists.

“Research-related hypotheses are not misinformation or conjecture,” they said. “Scientific journals should open their columns to in-depth analyses of all hypotheses.”

The lab leak theory suggests that Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, could have escaped from a facility researching bat coronaviruses in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first cases were identified.

The group also referred to the theory as a “research-related incident” that could include researchers becoming infected while collecting bat coronaviruses in the field or on the way to a lab.

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Four co-authors who wrote the first draft of the letter told the South China Morning Post in a joint statement that it was in China’s interest to explore all possible pathways by which Sars-CoV-2 could have made the jump from animals to humans.

“China, like the rest of the world, should implement the necessary scientific means to resolve this issue [of the origins of Covid-19], as no country has an interest in the emergence of new epidemics,” they said.

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