Many articles circulating say that the Wuhan Virology Institute (WVI) in China made a gain of function experiment on the monkeypox virus. That is not true.
The experiment from the scientists at the Wuhan Virology Institute is the Efficient assembly of a large fragment of monkeypox virus genome as a qPCR template using dual-selection based transformation-associated recombination.
The purpose of the study is to make a PCR test that can identify the monkeypox virus. PCR testing is the gold standard and the fastest way to diagnose pox infections like smallpox, chickenpox, and monkeypox.
China has no history of a monkeypox outbreak, and they do not have the monkeypox virus. They had to synthesize it chemically using a publicly available monkeypox gene sequence of the Congo strain from GenBank.
The 5′-end terminus (1–55543 bp) of the MPXV monkeypox strain Congo_2003_358 (GenBank accession DQ011154.1) genome was chemically synthesized.
The experiment entails joining a segment of the synthesized monkeypox virus with the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. However, the usual technique is prone to errors. That is why they modified a process called Transformation-associated recombination (TAR) so that it will be less error-prone.
The result is a 55 thousand or 55-kilo base-pair monkeypox genomic fragment with two valuable qPCR targets for detecting MPXV or other orthopoxviruses. That length is not enough to cause viral infection or replication.
Monkeypox viruses (MPXVs) are giant DNA viruses with reported genome sizes ranging from 190,083 to 206,372 bp in length.
The monkeypox gene they produced is only one-third to one-fourth of the whole genomic sequence. Just enough to make a PCR test. What they did is the opposite of the gain of function test.
In their discussion, the Wuhan virologists are aware of the concern among the scientific community about reconstructing pathogenic viruses. That happened when Noyce et al. rebuilt an extinct horse pox virus.
Scientists like Gregory Koblentz and Diane Di Euliis and her group voiced their biosecurity concerns regarding resurrecting extinct viruses like smallpox with such experiments. You can read about their thoughts here and here.
As of now, on May 23, 2022, 5 pm Pacific time, there are 260 suspected and confirmed cases according to www.global.health. There are no reported deaths so far. If the gain of function was made to the monkeypox, we should be seeing more than ten percent fatalities.
Therefore, the answer to the question, Did the Wuhan virology lab mutate the monkeypox virus? The answer is no. They just made a PCR test for monkeypox.
Here is the proof: The genome sequence of the 2022 monkeypox has been published. You can read it HERE. The monkeypox belongs to the West African clade and is similar to an outbreak in 2018.
This sequence (Monkeypox_PT0001_2022.zip (52.1 KB)) was obtained from a swab collected on May 4th from skin lesions from a male patient.
A first rapid phylogenetic analysis of the draft genome indicates that the 2022 virus belongs to the West African clade and is most closely related to viruses associated with the exportation of monkeypox virus from Nigeria to several countries in 2018 and 2019, namely the United Kingdom, Israel, and Singapore.
If you want to put a “conspiracy theory” angle on the Wuhan experiment, is it a coincidence that China made a PCR test for monkeypox three months before the outbreak? Think of the amount of money that will generate.
Here’s some more fodder for the conspiracy theorists; Professor George F. Gao is the Director-General Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He is present at the Event 201, the coronavirus exercise, in October 2019. Two months before COVID-19 started.
Last year, Prof Gao was also involved in the Nuclear Threat Initiative Tabletop Exercise for a Monkeypox virus pandemic.
A cause of concern to me is the number of cases in Europe and the US, and Australia that did not come from a point source. Could it be that an entity is spraying an aerosolized monkeypox virus?
Truth heals. Lies kill. Don’t Get Sick!
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Related:
- Aerosolized Monkeypox Viruses
- The 2021 Monkeypox tabletop exercise resulted in 3.2 billion cases, 271 million dead
- Monkeypox: Time for disinfection again
- Know more about Monkeypox
- A Smallpox Epidemic is More Possible than You Think
- First cases of human cases of H5N1 influenza in the US and H3N8 in China
- Pathogens from the Pentagon BioSafety labs in Ukraine revealed
- Pentagon Bio-laboratories in Ukraine
- Bioweapons from Ukraine are now in the US
- What is the United States afraid of in the Ukraine situation?
Reference:
Yang et al. Efficient assembly of a large fragment of monkeypox virus genome as a qPCR template using dual-selection-based transformation-associated recombination. Virologica Sinica. Available online on 28 February 2022
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