A Chinese facility, previously implicated in the global COVID-19 pandemic, is now suspected of leaking a highly advanced strain of polio, as per a report recently acquired by Daily Mail.
The strain, which infected a four-year-old boy in China's Anhui province, is believed to be nearly identical to a variant housed at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located 200 miles away. This incident occurred amidst a larger viral outbreak within the province.
As reported by One America News, Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist unaffiliated with the study, stated that "the findings underscore the shocking unsafe state of global virology research." Ebright, a Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, is a respected figure in the field. He leads a team of researchers and is a project leader on three National Institutes of Health research grants.
However, the origins of the strain, known as WIV14, remain a subject of investigation. Some researchers express uncertainty about its definitive link to the Wuhan facility. Conversely, scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, hypothesize that the strain likely evolved from a 1950s variant of the virus, primarily used in laboratory testing for vaccine development.
The Wuhan lab's reputation for lax safety protocols and its proximity to the Anhui province lend credence to these suspicions. If the polio strain can be definitively linked to the Chinese state-run facility, it would mark the latest in a series of safety breaches. The Biden administration, following a congressional investigation, withdrew funding for the facility last year.
The resurgence of polio in the United States, a decade after its last appearance, was signaled by the discovery of the virus in a four-year-old boy in the Anhui province in 2022. The virus was subsequently detected in New York's sewage system over 70 times during testing.
Researchers at the Pasteur Institute compared the complete genome DNA of the WIV14 polio strain to that of the "Saukett A" strain, commonly used in the development of most polio vaccines. The difference between the two strains' genomes, each comprising over 7,000 basic DNA building blocks, was found to be a mere 70 nucleotides.
According to the CDC, "Most people who get infected with poliovirus will not have any visible symptoms." However, approximately 25% of those infected will experience flu-like symptoms, which typically resolve on their own within 2 to 5 days.
The potential implications of this new strain of polio and its possible link to the Wuhan Institute of Virology underscore the importance of rigorous safety protocols in virology research. As investigations continue, the global community awaits definitive answers.
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