China News Service: 

Foreign media outlets have reported that the author team from the China CDC deleted data that had been uploaded to the Global Initiative in Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID) database when submitting their article on early research data on the Huanan Seafood Market. Is this true? What was the process of submitting the article? Thank you. 

Shen Hongbing:

Thank you for your questions. I'll answer them. As far as I know, the research team from China CDC submitted a preliminary draft paper to Nature in February 2022. During the submission and revision process, experts from China CDC and other organizations uploaded the original data related to the paper to the GISAID database following international practices for scientific paper publication. The data was intended only for access by the journal's reviewers, and an agreement was made with the journal and GISAID that the data would not be publicly released until after the article's publication. The data and access links have been all available and have not deleted. On March 11, 2023, the author team found that the data uploaded to the GISAID platform had been prematurely released by GISAID staff before the article's publication and without the author team's knowledge. The research team immediately called the GISAID platform to inquire about the situation, and the staff said that the data release was caused by a "misoperation" by their staff. The platform subsequently closed sharing access, but the data is still available on the platform. Our team and platform have not deleted any data, and the data access link for the peer review process has always been available. The author team uploaded the research data following international practices. We hope that GISAID will clarify this to the media and the WHO to restore the truth of the matter.

Additionally, the latest version of the paper was published online by Nature on April 5, and all the original data has also been simultaneously released in four databases at home and abroad. Thank you.