Chinese whistleblower virologist Li-Meng Yan who was forced to flee the country after raising questions about the origin of the novel coronavirus, has once again said the Covid-19 virus was developed in a Chinese lab, a claim that has earlier been denied by both Beijing and the World Health Organisation (WHO).
New York:
In a fresh interview with the US-based The National Pulse, she said: ""The Covid-19 was lab-modified based on a virus discovered and owned by the Chinese military, the Zhoushan bat coronavirus, ZC45 and ZXC21. My scientific report will be out soon."
She had previously stated in an interview with Taiwan News that the coronavirus was developed in a Chinese military facility controlled by the People's Liberation Army (PLA).
In a July interview with Spanish daily El Mundo, she said she was gathering "solid evidence" to demonstrate that the novel coronavirus did not originate in a wet market in Wuhan.
Talking to British broadcaster ITV, the virologist had said: The (virus) genome sequence is like a fingerprint. Based on that, you can identify things. I will use this evidence to tell people why this (the coronavirus) came from a laboratory in China and why they are the ones who developed it."
Li-Meng fled China in April and has been hiding in the US.
She claims China has launched a campaign to discredit her and to smear her reputation, reports en.as.com.
The overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 28.6 million, while the deaths have increased to over 918,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.