China News Service, Beijing, August 13 (Reporter Huang Yuqin) Xu Jianguo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a medical microbiologist, said at a briefing on the traceability of the new crown virus in China on the 13th that the new crown virus is of natural origin and cannot be manufactured artificially.
He introduced that from the perspective of biosecurity, infectious disease outbreaks can be divided into three categories, including natural, accidental and deliberate.
At present, a lot of evidence shows that the new crown epidemic is not deliberate or accidental, but a naturally occurring infectious disease.
Xu Jianguo pointed out that the deliberate epidemic of infectious diseases is a deliberate preparation, release, and spread of pathogens, causing the epidemic, and it is a deliberate bioterrorism event.
The pathogens involved include known potent pathogens, artificially manufactured and artificially modified pathogens.
The new coronavirus does not have the characteristics of artificial manufacture and modification.
Many reported cases of infectious diseases deliberately manufactured using known potent pathogens occurred in the United States.
He emphasized that the new coronavirus cannot be artificially created.
So far, no pathogen in the world is manufactured artificially.
No laboratory has the ability to design and manufacture new viruses and bacteria that do not exist on earth.
Therefore, the rumors that the new coronavirus is made by scientists are alarmist and contrary to scientific common sense.
The artificial creation of new viruses is confused with the artificial synthesis of known viruses.
Xu Jianguo further stated that the new crown virus cannot be formed by artificially transforming the bat new crown virus.
The use of genetic manipulation techniques to modify pathogens requires two conditions.
One is to have a starting (prototype) strain of bacteria (virus), that is, to have the object of modification; the other is that the pathogen's gene function is clear, that is, it is necessary to know which genes are modified and what functions are produced.
The new coronavirus lacks a starting strain, has no targets for modification, and cannot be artificially modified.
He particularly emphasized that the new crown epidemic does not have the characteristics of accidental infectious diseases.
To determine an accidental infectious disease epidemic, at least two conditions must be met: one is that the laboratory has retained and operated the pathogen before the accident; the other is that the pathogen isolated from the patient and the pathogen in the laboratory are at the genetic or genomic level Basically the same.
The new coronavirus is of natural origin.
But we haven't found its animal reservoir yet.
(Finish)