Coronavirus: SARS-CoV-2 was not created by humans with elements of HIV

Text by: Simon Rozé Follow

The words of Luc Montagnier, 2008 Nobel Prize winner for his participation in the discovery of HIV, have more than shocked the scientific community. He claims that the coronavirus responsible for the Covid-19 epidemic was created by the Chinese with HIV molecules.

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According to Brandolini's law, saying stupid things takes less effort than getting the facts right. Here is a typical example. In an interview at the frequencemedicale and pourquoidocteur sites, the French professor Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of the AIDS virus, affirms that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is the result of an attempt to manufacture a vaccine against HIV.

In reality, it is certain that SARS-CoV-2, responsible for the current epidemic, was not created by human hands. The coronavirus itself provides proof, through the analysis of its genetic code. Very quickly, at the start of the epidemic, Chinese researchers managed to sequence it and made it available to the international scientific community. His study teaches us a lot about its origin .

No trace of human manipulation

First element: it could not have been created by man. Human intervention leaves traces. All the molecular biology techniques used today to manipulate viruses for therapeutic purposes, for example, leave a sort of signature on its genome. That of SARS-CoV-2 is free of such traces. Unless alleged manipulators invent a whole new method of genomic editing unknown to the rest of the world, it therefore appears that the origin of this coronavirus is natural.

This genome study tells us more precisely that this virus is a cousin of SARS-CoV, responsible for the SARS epidemic of 2002-2003, with which it shares a little less than three quarters of its genetic information. It is for this reason that he was so named. But in this family of coronaviruses, SARS-CoV-2 has another parent, much closer still: RaTG13, a bat virus. The two have 96% of their genetic information in common. It was after this discovery that the track of a zoonosis (a disease of animal origin) was privileged.

A non-optimal virus

A final element makes it possible to rule out the human origin of this coronavirus: it is not optimal. To infect a host, a virus needs to enter one of its cells to "hack" it, so that it can produce copies of the virus. Unlike bacteria, it is in fact not able to replicate itself. To do this, he needs some kind of key to cross the cell membrane. On SARS-CoV-2, it is the species of suction cups that surround it.

These can open certain lung cells quite easily. This is why breathing difficulties and pneumonia are among the main symptoms of Covid-19. However, if this coronavirus easily enters these lung cells, it could do so even more easily. For years, the study of its cousin SARS-CoV has shown scientists what this optimal method could be. So, if this new coronavirus had been created from scratch in the laboratory, it is very surprising that its putative designers did not make it as efficient as possible.

So why does Luc Montagnier talk about similarities to HIV? The answer this time is very simple: the sequences in question are in fact very widespread and commonplace in many viruses.

The SARS-CoV-2 genome is actually nothing very surprising. As noted above, it is 96% similar to that of another virus that naturally infects bats, and we know that coronaviruses occasionally pass from these animals to humans, as the person responsible for SARS had done it almost 20 years ago. The characteristics of Covid-19, the disease it causes, point in the same direction: its symptoms, its contagiousness or its method of transmission correspond to what we have already been shown by other coronaviruses of the same family before.

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