The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reiterated that the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes the COVID-19 pandemic, happened "naturally", and was not manufactured in a lab.

"WHO believes in science and evidence, and if there is anything that will change this, it will have to be arrived at scientifically," its director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a recent global media briefing.

According to him, there have been many publications that have proven that the virus happened naturally, and was not manufactured in any lab.

Although Tedros did not mention names, he was believed to be respondiong to a claim by a Chinese scientist in exile, Dr Li-Meng Yan, who claimed that the coronavirus was manufactured in a lab in Wuhan, China, as a bioweapon.

The virologist also claimed that the Chinese government and WHO had known about the virus' human-to-human transmission, and the extensive damage it could end up inflicting upon the world, much earlier if not contained, but did not reveal it to the public.

Li also told an interview with FOX News in the US, where she is living in exile, that she will publish proof to back her allegation.

This is not the first someone has claimed that the coronavirus is man-made. From the onset, conspiracy theorists have peddled notions that that the virus was made in a lab and intentionally released as a biological weapon. This despite rigorous scientific research proving otherwise.

The COVID-19 pandemic has so far infected more than 33.5 million people, and killed over a million people, around the world.

In Malaysia, the COVID-19 infection and death tally have crossed 11,000, and 134, respectively.


Source: Harian Metro
Photo source: Astro Awani, newscientist.com