In the summer of last year, two Pune scientists, Dr Monali Rahalkar and husband Dr Rahul Bahulikar, wrote a paper titled ‘Lethal Pneumonia Cases in Mojiang Miners (2012) and the Mineshaft Could Provide Important Clues to the Origin of SARS-CoV-2’. The research, first reported by TOI on June 16, 2020, theorised a link between Covid-19 and a pneumonia-like illness that claimed the lives of three miners in China’s Yunnan province. Their probe into the deaths and the bat coronavirus RaTG13, discovered in 2013 and currently the closest known relative of SARS-CoV-2, soon became a key part of investigations by DRASTIC, a group of scientists and analysts looking into the origins of Covid-19. The couple’s work gained momentum after a member of this group — known as ‘The Seeker’ — found other vital information that boosted the ‘lab leak theory’. Rahalkar has hypothesised that the miners’ illness was not transmissible at the time because friends and relatives and others near the mine were not sickened. But after their samples reached the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), reports emerged of a fast-moving infection. Excerpts from an interview with Swati Shinde Gole…
What made you so curious about SARS-CoV-2 origins?
Its exact origin is still unknown. It’s said bats are the source of this beta coronavirus, mainly because the next relative, named RaTG13, comes from bat feces. RaTG13 is a virus sequenced from bat fecal swab collected in 2013. Not many details have been given about this interesting relative, though we know that SARS-CoV-2 and RaTG13 share 96.2% genome similarities. SARS-CoV-2 or 2019-nCoV was first described in a Nature paper (Zhou et al 2020), but the authors did not provide details on RaTG13, only mentioning that it came from China’s Yunnan province. The paper’s lead author is Zheng-li Shi, from the WIV. We later found out that RaTG13 was discovered by Zheng-li Shi’s group in 2012-13 during surveillance of an abandoned mineshaft. After going through several online sources, we found the exact location of this mine – TongGuan, Mojiang county, Yunnan.
Why is the Mojiang mineshaft link so special?
In April 2012, six miners at the site who may have been exposed to guano for four to 14 days, were hospitalised with severe pneumonia and fever. A Master’s student (Li Xu) detailed their symptoms and treatment. Three of the six miners would eventually succumb. The student’s thesis (translated from Chinese) mentions interstitial pneumonia, ground-glass opacities in lungs and some pulmonary thromboembolism. All patients had fever, cough and severe pneumonia. Prognosis was better and hospital stay shorter in younger miners and those who had spent a shorter duration in the mine. Two miners with comorbidities (tumor and hepatitis) died within a short span. Treatment included use of antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal antibiotics, along with corticosteroids and antithrombotic drugs (in a few patients). The patients were remotely seen by Zhong Nanshan, the lead specialist during SARS in 2003. Nanshan said the patients had interstitial pneumonia (primarily of viral origin) and invasive aspergillosis (secondary). He also ordered SARS antibody testing for the latter of the four cases (as two patients had died). The miners had IgG antibodies.
What do you think happened at the Wuhan lab?
The Wuhan Institute of Virology was studying bat feces drawn from mineshafts. They found a SARS-like beta coronavirus – Ra4991 (perhaps the ‘ra’ later in RaTG13) – from the same mineshaft where the miners had been sickened after sampling in 2013. The lab has denied any work on SARS-CoV-2 before 2019. But there are high chances of modification of the virus inside the lab. Based on facts in our paper, there is a strong likelihood the modified virus leaked from the lab and that has been our point of investigation from day one. How did the outbreak happen in Wuhan and not at the mineshaft where six miners were infected with symptoms similar to Covid-19?
Do you think WIV’s admission that the Mojiang miners had severe respiratory illness was a breakthrough?
In an addendum to the 2020 paper explaining SARS-CoV-2 and its effects, the WIV states the Mojiang miners had severe respiratory disease. The lab also admits it collected a sample, which they renamed RaTG13, from the same mineshaft. This is the first written evidence in which WIV admits it collected a virus or a sample – till now the closest neighbour of SARS-CoV-2 – from a mineshaft in China. And that the same mineshaft was the reason why the miners, or the people working to clean the mine, took ill. This revelation came after the publication of our research.
How did you get in touch with ‘The Seeker’, currently among anonymous analysts investigating Covid origins?
‘The Seeker’ got in touch with us the same day our preprint appeared online. This internet user said we had some interesting findings. ‘The Seeker’ then asked us to join a small band of four to five scientists who had been investigating the origins of the virus. And this is how we went on to become a part of DRASTIC, a global collaboration that’s trying to determine where SARS-CoV-2 may have come from.
What are key questions DRASTIC now has?
The miners’ samples were sent for SARS testing to WIV, the same institute that conducted surveillance of bat coronaviruses in the Mojiang mineshaft. The link with SARS-like CoV (4991/RaTG13) from the mine site that reported lethal pneumonia cases was not discussed in papers by the WIV before February last year. We want to know what kind of samples the WIV received from the Mojiang miners and if these samples are still stored there. If the samples are there, are they available for study by other researchers? They have avoided sharing any details of the miners’ illness, which were documented only by later papers and these references could have been cited in Zhou’s 2020 paper.
What steps do you recommend the WHO probe take?
The ‘Covid-19 origins investigation’ must follow the highest standards of data-driven, peer-reviewed science. The DRASTIC team has recommended the WHO make a clear listing of the possible paths for virus evolution and human infection. Time and effort should be dedicated to examine all leads without prior assumptions. All information, including samples, project reports, personnel information, field-trip details, relevant emails and even lab notes should be shared with authorities and analysts.