A brand-new virus was discovered in the Chinese laboratory at the origin of Covid.
In a mouse, researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology found the virus LsPyV KY187.
It belongs to the polyomavirus family, which infects millions of children annually but is extremely mild.
In 2016 and 2019, scientists at the controversial facility tested hundreds of rodents in Kenya and made the discovery.
The samples were subsequently submitted to the biochemical research laboratory in Wuhan, the epicenter of the Covid epidemic, for analysis.
The new polyomavirus was discovered in a striped grass mouse, also called a zebra mouse.
This was disclosed in a study published this month in the Chinese journal Virologica Sinica.
Because the new virus is not closely related to any known infection, its effect on humans is “uncertain and requires additional investigation,” according to the researchers.
Despite persisting doubts over its ties to the pandemic, the discovery demonstrates that the Wuhan lab is operating as usual.
Covid began to spread approximately eight miles from the WIV, which operated with hazardous coronaviruses, in an animal slaughter market.
Chinese officials suppressed independent lab studies and deleted vital databases providing information on early Covid patients.
WIV researchers who fell ill with a strange virus resembling influenza months before the official Covid chronology were suppressed or vanished.
In early 2020, the so-called lab-leak concept was disregarded as a conspiracy or xenophobia. However, as time has passed, the theory has gained ground.
The WIV conducted considerable research on the bat and other animal coronaviruses and was rumored to be conducting experiments on Covid’s closest known cousins.
It was also doing contentious gain-of-function research involving the modification of viruses to make them more contagious or lethal.
However, there have never been any direct indications that Covid first spread to humans in the facility.
The new study appears to confirm that the Huanan Seafood Market was the original origin of the pandemic.
The most recent study, which was published in a scholarly journal in November of last year, involves collecting samples from 232 animals in five Kenyan counties.
They were gathered twice, in August and September of 2016 and March of 2019.
Researchers examined 226 mice and rats, five shrews, and one hedgehog, all of which are recognized reservoirs of zoonotic infectious illnesses — diseases that can be transmitted to humans.
Returning the samples to the WIV for PCR analysis.
Seven families of DNA viruses were checked for in the liver, lungs, and kidneys of each animal.
Twenty-five animals tested positive in all. Samples were linked back to pre-existing viruses in all cases but one.
However, the additional study revealed that the novel virus polyomavirus was only 60% similar to its closest relative.
The researchers stated in their report that the novel virus was unrelated to any known virus that causes sickness in small mammals or humans.
The researchers stated, ‘Their pathogenicity [ability to cause disease in humans] and possible risk of zoonotic transmission are unknown and require additional investigation.’
Approximately 80% of individuals have been infected with polyomavirus at some point in their lives, most typically during childhood.
The virus resides in the upper respiratory tract and causes no symptoms in most cases.
It is never eliminated from the body and remains dormant for the duration of a person’s life, but most people are unaware of this.
In extremely rare instances, the virus can reactivate and spread in immunocompromised patients, causing kidney or even brain damage.
In the meanwhile, the Wuhan researchers emphasize the significance of continued animal virus research.
‘As agricultural activities expand into the natural habitats of rodents in Africa, it underscores the need for continuing surveillance over a wider region, which might include greater sample size and the application of more high-throughput detection tools.
Pathogenicity studies of new viral pathogens will also be necessary for future research.
Such programs will provide an essential foundation for future efforts to prevent and manage to development of zoonotic illnesses.
