China admits it destroyed early COVID-19 samples

Chinese authorities on Friday admitted to destroying COVID-19 samples in unauthorised laboratories early in the outbreak for safety reasons.

The US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo had in April accused China of refusing to provide virus samples taken from patients when the pandemic began in China in late 2019 and that Chinese authorities had destroyed early samples.

An official of the National Health Commission’s Science and Education Department, Liu Dengfeng, told the South China Morning Post that the samples were destroyed at unauthorized labs to “prevent the risk to laboratory biological safety and prevent secondary disasters caused by unidentified pathogens.”

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He insisted it was done for biosafety reasons and not to hide them from the US and other countries.

“When the coronavirus was first reported in the city of Wuhan, national-level professional institutes” were working to identify the pathogen that was causing it.

“Based on comprehensive research and expert opinion, we decided to temporarily manage the pathogen causing pneumonia as Class II — highly pathogenic — and imposed biosafety requirements on sample collection, transport and experimental activities, as well as destroying the samples”, Liu said.

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