Wuhan Lab Was Genetically Manipulating Deadly Nipah Virus, Expert Testifies at Senate Hearing

A forensic analysis shows that the Wuhan Insitute of Virology (WIV) was genetically manipulating the Nipah virus, a highly lethal pathogen, in violation of the biological weapons convention, according to an expert who testified at a Senate subcommittee hearing on Aug. 3.

The finding was another piece of evidence showing that the controversial Wuhan lab was conducting gain-of-function research—experiments that ultimately resulted in the COVID-19 pandemic via a leak from the facility, said Dr. Steven Quay, chief executive officer of Atossa Therapeutics. Gain-of-function research involves enhancing the potency or transmissibility of a virus.

Quay said he and other scientists conducted an examination of COVID-19 patient specimens from December 2019 sequenced and published by the WIV. Through that analysis, published in a pre-print paper that has not been peer-reviewed, they found 20 unexpected contaminants that they believed were evidence of other research conducted at the lab.

“For 19 of the 20 unexpected contaminants, we then found published research from the previous two years, confirming that the lab had indeed been working on these unexpected genes,” Quay wrote in written testimony (pdf) before a hearing on gain-of-function research held by the Senate subcommittee Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight. The hearing was only attended by the subcommittee’s Republican members.

But one contaminant not accounted for in papers published by WIV, Quay said, was cloning vectors of the Nipah virus.

“This is the most dangerous research I have ever encountered,” Quay said in the written testimony.

The Nipah virus has a lethality of more than 60 percent, more than that of Ebola, though it is less transmissible than the latter virus since it is not airborne, the expert said at the hearing. The Nipah virus is also about 60 times deadlier than COVID-19.

“[A] laboratory-acquired infection with a modified Nipah virus would make the COVID-19 pandemic look

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases