A study warned that Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) samples taken from immunosuppressed individuals could cause more severe illness than the circulating B11529 omicron strain. While omicron is much more infectious than its predecessors, it causes milder symptoms.
According to the Japan Times, the study from South Africa took COVID-19 samples from a person infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The researchers observed the pathogen samples for six months.
Over the course of the observation period, they found that the pathogen samples initially caused the same level of cell fusion and death as the BA1 substrain of omicron. However, those levels eventually became similar to the first version of COVID-19 identified in the city of Wuhan in China's Hubei province.
The paper, which lists virologist Alex Sigal of the Africa Health Research Institute in the South African city of Durban as the lead study author, indicated that SARS-CoV-2 could continue to mutate. New mutations of the pathogen may cause more severe illness and death than the relatively mild omicron strain.
The researchers noted on Nov. 24 that their paper "may indicate that SARS-CoV-2 evolution in long-term infection does not have to result in attenuation. It may, [however], indicate that a future variant could be more pathogenic than currently circulating omicron strains."
Sigal and other scientists have previously postulated that two COVID-19 variants may have evolved in immunosuppressed people, such as those infected with HIV. These strains – omicron and the prior B1351 beta strain – were both initially identified in southern Africa. The long time it takes for these individuals to shake off COVID-19 allows the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen to mutate and become better at evading antibodies, they remarked. (Related: Covid-19 and the HIV connection revealed.)
Gain-of-function research also threatens to create deadlier SARS-CoV-2 strain
While the evolution of COVID-19 in HIV-infected people takes months, some unscrupulous scientists are accelerating the process through manipulation of the virus packaged under the term "gain-of-function research." The threat appears to be closer to home as scientists at Boston University (BU) have dipped their fingers into the practice by combining the first variant of SARS-CoV-2 with the milder omicron.
According to the Daily Mail, the team of BU scientists combined omicron and the original Wuhan strain to create a new, deadlier strain. They boasted that the engineered strain killed 80 percent of mice infected with it. Moreover, the scientists remarked that the variant "robustly escapes vaccine-induced humoral immunity."
BU shot down allegations that the study was gain-of-function research, adding that it was reviewed and approved by both the National Institutes of Health's Institutional Biosafety Committee and the Boston Public Health Commission.
"This research mirrors and reinforces the findings of other similar research performed by other organizations," a university spokesperson said. "Ultimately, this research will provide a public benefit by leading to better, targeted therapeutic interventions to help fight against future pandemics."
But several experts denounced the BU's study, given that gain-of-function research is responsible for the emergence of COVID-19.
"This should be totally forbidden, it's playing with fire," said Israeli professor Shmuel Shapira, former director-general of the Israel Institute of Biological Research.
"The research is a clear example of a gain-of-function research," said Rutgers University's Dr. Richard Ebright. "If we are to avoid a next lab-generated pandemic, it is imperative that oversight of enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research be strengthened.
"Given the strong likelihood that the COVID-19 pandemic originated from the escape of a lab-manipulated coronavirus in Wuhan, these experiments seem profoundly unwise," the University of East Anglia's David Livermore remarked.
Head over to Infections.news for more stories about the SARS-CoV-2 pathogen behind COVID-19.
Watch this video from the BBC that admits to the use of HIV to create the COVID-19 vaccine.
This video is from the BlueSkyReport channel on Brighteon.com.
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"What are the odds?" – A timeline of facts linking COVID-19, HIV, & Wuhan's secret bio-lab.
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