数月来,有关新冠病毒的各种阴谋论甚嚣尘上,类似“病毒是实验室人工合成”的谬论不绝于耳。 一些别有用心的外国政客将病毒“政治化”,利用这些阴谋论来转移视线,企图推卸本国抗疫不力的责任。 这些毫无根据的阴谋论,也遭到了各界人士的强烈批评。 在接受CGTN采访时,美国宾夕法尼亚大学微生物学教授弗雷德里克·布什曼再次驳斥了“新冠病毒人造论”。 “没有理由认为新冠病毒是人为制造的武器” 布什曼教授在采访中表示“没有理由认为新冠病毒是人为制造的生物武器”。 他提到了新冠病毒和很多从动物传到人类身上的病毒类似,这类病毒引起的疾病在传染病研究领域被称为动物传染病。 布什曼表示,“新冠病毒与蝙蝠身上的已知病毒非常接近,但又不完全相同。”他认为病毒可能始于蝙蝠,然后通过中间的动物宿主,传播给人类。 他还列举了艾滋病、汉坦病毒肺综合征、中东呼吸综合征等动物传染病的例子,进一步解释了引起这类疾病的病毒是如何从动物传播至人类的。 "There's no reason to think that it's a deliberately engineered weapon or something like that," said Frederic D. Bushman, Co-director of the Center for Research on Coronavirus and other Emerging Pathogens, University of Pennsylvania. During the interview with CGTN, Bushman pointed out that SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19, looks very much like other viruses that have spilled over from animals into humans. The disease caused by such virus is called zoonosis in infectious disease research. HIV, Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome and MERS are all prominent examples of zoonosis. "The virus looks close to but not identical to a known virus of bats," said Bushman, adding that the virus might have started from bats, spilled over into some intermediate animal hosts and then transferred to humans. 科学界频频“打脸” 除了布什曼教授,还有许多专家学者也表示,有关新冠病毒起源的阴谋论是无稽之谈,缺乏科学依据。 美国抗“疫”队长安东尼·福奇:没有科学证据证明新冠病毒是由中国实验室人为制造的 美国政府顶级传染病专家安东尼·福奇5月4日在接受《国家地理》采访时提到,没有科学证据证明新冠病毒是由中国实验室人为制造的。此前福奇就曾表示,“新冠病毒的突变与某物种将病毒从动物身上传递给人类的过程完全吻合”,反驳了“病毒实验室合成论”。 Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House coronavirus task force and director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the best evidence shows the virus behind the pandemic was not made in a lab in China during a conversation with National Geographic on Monday. Previously, he also suggested the available evidence on the origins of the virus is "totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human", throwing cold water on conspiracy theories that coronavirus was created in a lab.
《自然医学》论文:新冠病毒刺突蛋白与人体细胞的结合效率之高,只有自然选择才能实现 在科学杂志《自然医学》3月刊发的一篇研究论文中,美国、英国和澳大利亚的科学家分析了在入侵细胞过程中发挥作用的新冠病毒刺突蛋白的两个特征:抓住以及进入宿主细胞。研究结果表明,新冠病毒刺突蛋白与人体细胞的结合效率之高,只有自然选择才能实现,靠人工操纵无法完成。 Coronaviruses are named for the crown-like spikes on their surface. In a study published on Nature Medicine in March, a group of scientists from the U.S., Britain, Australia analyzed two specific features of spike proteins of the virus, which are responsible for gripping and entering into the host cells. The results show that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is optimized for binding to a molecular on the outside of human cells, so efficient that scientists concluded it was the result of natural selection and not a purposefully manipulated virus.
《柳叶刀》联合声明:强烈谴责那种认为新冠病毒并非源自自然界的阴谋论 2月18日,27名来自8个不同国家的医学专家在国际专业医学期刊《柳叶刀》上联合发表声明,指出:“来自世界各国的科研工作者已经对引发该疾病的新冠病毒的全基因组进行了分析并公开发表了结果,这些结果压倒性地证明了该冠状病毒和其他很多新发病原一样来源于野生动物。 On February 18, 27 international public health experts decried false claims that the novel coronavirus was lab manufactured. In a statement issued on The Lancet, the world's leading general medical journal, they said: "Scientists from multiple countries have published and analyzed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2),1 and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife." 悉尼大学学者爱德华·霍尔姆斯:“新冠病毒没有任何实验室操作的特点” 悉尼大学进化生物学家和病毒学家爱德华·霍尔姆斯在接受CGTN采访时表示,新冠病毒是从动物身上以自然进化的方式产生的,身上没有任何实验室操作的特点。 Edward Charles Holmes, evolutionary biologist and virologist at the University of Sydney, shared his view with CGTN that the novel coronavirus is not a lab construct. 世卫组织多次发声 自新冠肺炎疫情发生以来,世界卫生组织也多次强调“现有证据表明病毒源于自然界”,驳斥“病毒人工合成论”。
The World Health Organization (WHO) issued a statement on February 19, saying: "There is no evidence that this virus was produced in a laboratory, and certainly no evidence that it was produced as a biological weapon. They come from the animal kingdom."
The WHO on April 21 stressed that all available evidence suggests the novel coronavirus originated in animals late last year and was not manipulated or produced in a laboratory.
The WHO's daily situation report issued on April 23 said all available evidence for COVID-19 suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has a zoonotic source. Many researchers have been able to look at the genomic features of SARS-CoV-2 and found that evidence does not support that SARS-CoV-2 is a "laboratory construct."
WHO expert Maria Van Kerkhove said during Monday's daily briefing that there were some 15,000 full genome sequences of the novel coronavirus available, and "from all of the evidence that we have seen ... this virus is of natural origin."