COVID was man-made virus, reveals former Wuhan lab scientist in a new book

By Team Newsable | First Published Dec 5, 2022, 5:15 PM IST

COVID leaked from Wuhan: Epidemiologist Andrew Huff in his latest book 'The Truth About Wuhan' claimed that the pandemic was caused by the US government's funding of coronaviruses in China, according to excerpts of the book.

A US-based scientist who formerly worked at a contentious research facility in Wuhan, China, has claimed that COVID-19 was a "man-made virus" that escaped from the facility.

According to the New York Post, which cited a remark made by US-based researcher Andrew Huff in the British tabloid The Sun, COVID was released from Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a state-funded and managed research centre, two years ago.

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In his latest book, "The Truth About Wuhan," epidemiologist Huff claieds that the pandemic was caused by the US government's funding of coronaviruses in China. Excerpts of Huff's book have been out in the UK-based tabloid The Sun.

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Huff is reportedly a former vice president of the EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based non-profit organisation that researches infectious illnesses. According to media report, Huff alleged in his book that China's gain-of-function studies were carried out with insufficient security, leading to a leak at the Wuhan facility.

With both Chinese government authorities and lab staff disputing that the virus originated there, the Wuhan facility has been the focus of contentious discussions on the origins of COVID. For more than a decade, the organisation has been studying several coronaviruses in bats with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and has forged close ties to the Wuhan lab.

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China was aware that this was a genetically modified agent "from day one," according to Huff. The Chinese Communist Party, which is in power, has put great pressure on this research organisation to advance science despite its limited funding in order to boost its stature internationally. The NIH is the main US government organisation in charge of biological and public health research.

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