https://7news.com.au/news/world/austral ... c-1002195The theory that coronavirus was accidentally unleashed from a Chinese laboratory is gaining momentum, as the Australian government maintains pressure on allies to launch an investigation into its origins.
Now there is a direct Australian link.
News emerged overnight that the Five Eyes intelligence agencies - comprising Australia, the US, Canada, UK and New Zealand - are investigating two Chinese scientists who previously worked on bat research in a CSIRO laboratory in Geelong.
Shi Zhengli and Zhou Peng are senior researchers specialising in studying emerging viruses of wildlife origin, specifically in bats and rodents, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the central China province of Hubei.
In January this year, they were co-authors of a research paper, published in Nature, that first linked COVID-19 to bats through genome sequencing of infected patients.
The origins of the virus have been traced back to a suspected cross-species infection in a wet market in Wuhan.
But the virology institute in the same city has been dogged by rumours it incubated COVID-19 without adequate biosafety measures.
Shi, one of the country’s top virologists, is known as China’s “bat woman” by her colleagues.
That’s because of her virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves, according to an interview published in Scientific American last month.
Shi told the journal she was called away urgently from a conference in Shanghai in late December following news of the outbreak in her home city.
“I wondered if [the municipal health authority] got it wrong,” Shi said.
“I had never expected this kind of thing to happen in Wuhan, in central China,” she said, confessing she remembers thinking “could (it) have come from our lab?”
Scientific American wrote that Shi had been distressed by repeated stories in the media since, that the virus accidentally leaked from her lab - despite the fact that COVID-19’s genetic sequence did not match any her lab had previously studied.
But according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, the US Embassy in Beijing became so alarmed in January 2018 over reports of unsafe practices at the Wuhan laboratory, a cohort of scientists and diplomats was dispatched to inspect the facility and interview Shi.
The Washington Post reported the delegation “sent warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety practices and management weaknesses as it conducted research on coronaviruses from bats”.
Australian link
Shi spent three months in 2006 as a visiting scientist at the CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness laboratory, a high-containment facility, in Geelong in Victoria.
She conducted research in links between the SARS virus and bats.
Her colleague Zhou completed his doctorate at the same facility between 2011 and 2014.
Both placements were jointly funded by the Australian and Chinese governments.
CSIRO responds
A spokesman for the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) confirmed both Shi and Zhou conducted research into bat viruses in Geelong, at its high biocontainment Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP) facility.
“CSIRO undertakes all research in accordance with strict biosecurity and legislative requirements,” the CSIRO said in a statement.
“While there is no current research on bats at ACDP, research into bats underpins much of our understanding of zoonotic (those passed from animals to humans) diseases.
“CSIRO’s collaborations with research organisations from many countries around the world are helping drive global effort forwards to human diseases prevention and management.
“As with all partners, CSIRO undertakes due diligence and takes security very seriously.”
Trade tensions
News of the developments comes as the relationship between the two countries continues to sour.
Morrison cabinet ministers continue to call for an independent investigation into Wuhan as the epicentre of what is now a global pandemic.
Australia’s trade minister, Simon Birmingham, said on Tuesday Australia “won’t give in to coercion” after China threatened to withdraw support from the nation’s major wine and beef export industries.
China’s ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, has also threatened to boycott Australian education and tourism - a threat Birmingham described as “inappropriate”.
“Australia’s position is very clear that we believe it is entirely reasonable ... for there to be a genuine inquiry and investigation into the cause of the loss of life of hundreds of thousands of people around the world,” Birmingham told the ABC on Tuesday.
“We won’t be changing our public policy position, on the face of such a serious public health matter, in the face of any threats of coercion from any other nation.”
Sorry it's so long.