World
Wuhan virus sequences removed from database: US
Adding to concerns over secrecy surrounding the outbreak of Coronavirus across the world, the US officials confirmed that the details of the genetic makeup of some of the earliest samples of coronavirus in China were removed from an American database where they were initially stored at the request of Chinese researchers.
In a statement on Wednesday, the US National Institutes of Health said that the data, first submitted to the U.S.-based Sequence Read Archive in March 2020, were “requested to be withdrawn” by the same researcher three months later in June.
The agency said that the reason cited at the time for withdrawal was that the sequence information had been updated and was being submitted to another database.
It added, “Submitting investigators hold the rights to their data and can request withdrawal of the data. NIH can’t speculate on motive beyond the investigator’s stated intentions.”