By Tony Winterburn • Published: 24 Apr 2020 • 9:08
World-leading expert Professor Petr Chumakov has fuelled speculation the virus could have accidentally originated in a Wuhan laboratory – potentially during research for other vaccines. American intelligence services have reportedly launched a full-scale investigation into the lab.
The lab has been at the centre of speculation in recent weeks after a theory emerged that the virus had originated from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This provided an alternative possibility to the initial belief that Covid-19 came from the nearby wet market.
Chumakov, who works at the Engelhardt Institute of Molecular Biology in Moscow, has reportedly claimed altering coronavirus could have enabled it to infect humans, he clarified he did not believe it was the researchers’ intention to do this.
The world-leading expert claimed scientists would have been aiming to create “variants of the virus… without malicious intent,” he also speculated they could have been aiming for a vaccine for something else entirely.
Chumakov said the Wuhan team wanted to study the pathogenicity and not deliberately make a killer virus.
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