The United States learned about the removal of early samples of the coronavirus found in the Chinese city of Wuhan. They were excluded from a key US scientific database at the request of the Chinese side, Bloomberg reported, citing a statement from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The agency confirmed that it removed the genomic sequences of early COVID-19 samples at the request of one Chinese scientist who had provided them three months earlier.
The scientist made a request in June 2020. According to him, it was necessary to delete the samples because new ones were provided, which were published in another database. According to him, he wanted to avoid possible confusion if the old version persists.
Similar information had previously come from Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He announced the disappearance from the database of genomic samples of the virus collected in Wuhan in January and February 2020.
