Shi Zhengli said that she will continue with her research on bats and other wild animals as they could be potential carriers of many viruses.
As coronavirus still continues to wreak havoc in certain parts of the world with the likelihood of a second wave for countries beginning to open up their economies, China's leading virologist Shi Zhengli, whose mysterious disappearance started rumours about the deadly virus origination from a lab in Wuhan, made her first television appearance in the country warning that these viruses are just the "tip of the iceberg", and dismissed allegations about the virus emanating from a lab.
Zhengli, known for her extensive research on bats, appeared on state-run television CGTN in which she explained in detail about her research on bats that led her to the identification of the new strain of coronavirus known as SARS-COV-2.
She elaborated that she and a group of researchers obtained samples of coronavirus on December 30 last year and performed high-throughput sequencing of the samples and the isolation of pathogens at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
"And then in a very short time, we identified that this was a new type of coronavirus in these samples. We obtained its whole genome sequence. It showed that the pathogen's sequence was not the same as the already existing viruses. So we named it a novel coronavirus," she added.
She said that the information regarding the new strain of coronavirus was submitted to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on January 12.
She further said that she performed experiments on animals for the identification of the pathogen. Animals infection experiments were performed-with transgenic mice on February 6, and with rhesus monkeys on February 9--both the experiments showing that coronavirus isolated by these group of researchers caused pneumonia in these animals.
She also highlighted that these viruses were just the 'tip of the iceberg', and stressed upon the fact that more research needs to carried out on wild animals to know about new viruses in order to protect humans from new infectious diseases.
Speaking about allegations about virus emanating from a bio-lab in Wuhan, she said, "I think that science has been politicised. It's very regrettable. I believe scientists from around the world don't want to see this. As I mentioned before, the researches on infectious diseases must be open and transparent."
In conclusion, she said that she will continue with her research on bats and other wild animals as they could be potential carriers of many viruses.
Earlier, she had refuted "rumours" of her defection to the West on her Chinese social media WeChat account. She also posted nine photos of her recent life.
US President Donald Trump had warned earlier that hat China will have to face "consequences" if found "knowingly responsible" for the pandemic outbreak.
In a cold note of warning, Trump had said that the US was conducting its own investigations into the origins of the virus outbreak to track the real reasons behind the spread of the coronavirus. Notably, the Trump administration had earlier stated that the US wasn't ruling out a possibility that the virus accidentally spread from a laboratory researching bats in Wuhan. Meanwhile, Beijing has rejected media reports claiming this and has instead alleged that the virus could have been brought into China by the US military.
Trump had also slammed the World Health Organisation (WHO) over its role in the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that it acted as the 'public relations agency for China'. His administration has already halted the US' financial assistance to WHO.
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