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, US officials confirmed.
The data, first submitted to the Sequence Read Archive in March 2020, were ‘requested to be withdrawn’ by the same researcher three months later in June, the U.S. National Institutes of Health said in a statement Wednesday. The genetic sequences came from the Chinese city of Wuhan where the Covid-19 outbreak was initially concentrated.
The reason cited at the time for withdrawal was that the sequence information had been updated and was being submitted to another database.
The confirmation adds to the concerns over secrecy surrounding the outbreak and origins of Covid. The disappearance also raises questions about what else from the Wuhan outbreak has been shielded.