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'Growing evidence' suggests Covid-19 originated from Wuhan lab: Senior US official

WION Web Team
New Delhi, Delhi, India Updated: Jan 04, 2021, 05:42 PM IST
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Wuhan Institute of Virology in China Photograph:(AFP)

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US's Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger said China's claims of the virus originating from Wuhan market are false

One of the senior-most officials in the United States has claimed that a "growing body of evidence" suggests that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is potentially the "most credible source" for the origin of the novel coronavirus

US's Deputy National Security Advisor Matthew Pottinger said China's claims of the virus originating from Wuhan market are false.

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Pointing to the latest intelligence inputs, Pottinger said that: ''there is a growing body of evidence that the lab is likely the most credible source of the virus", as quoted by Daily Mail. 

He also said that Covid-19 may have escaped via a "leak or an accident". 

Pottinger made these commends in a Zoom videoconference with British MPs last week and come at a time when experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) are preparing to travel Wuhan to know the virus's origins

Sam Armstrong, communications director at the Henry Jackson Society foreign policy think-tank said that when a "senior and respected" intelligence official is pushing these claims, the UK government must "seek both answers about and compensation for Covid-19.'

Wuhan is coronavirus's first epicentre and Beijing has constantly denied the involvement of the high-security lab in the region behind the leak of Covid-19. 

Meanwhile, a WHO team will arrive in China in January to find the coronavirus origins and recently one of the team members told news agency AFP that they will explore all avenues and will not focus on finding the "guilty" country or authority.