A team of scientists has produced evidence
that the pandemic virus is ‘uniquely adapted to infect humans’, raising
fresh questions over whether its origins were natural or could have
occurred in a laboratory. Professor
Nikolai Petrovsky, a top vaccine researcher who headed the Australian
team, said the virus was ‘not typical of a normal zoonotic [animal to
human] infection’ since it appeared with the ‘exceptional’ ability to
enter human bodies from day one. He
said the virus should have emerged from an animal through ‘a freak event
of nature’ but the possibility that it had leaked from a laboratory
could not be ruled out.Petrovsky,
professor of medicine at Flinders University in Adelaide, runs a biotech
research unit that will start human trials for a Covid-19 vaccine next
month.
‘I haven’t seen a zoonotic virus that has behaved in this way before,’ he said."
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