French Nobel Laureate claims Coronavirus was made in Wuhan lab
By: Team Ifairer | Posted: 20-04-2020
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French Nobel prize-winning scientist Luc Montagnier has claimed that the novel coronavirus originated from a Wuhan laboratory while attempting to manufacture a vaccine against HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus). During an interview with a French news channel, the Nobel laureate who co-discovered HIV said that the presence of HIV elements in the genome of SARS-CoV-2 raises suspicion against a possible man-made virus.
Prof Montagnier said that the Wuhan city laboratory has expertise in this area since they have been working on the coronaviruses since the early 2000s. However, the claim received criticism from scientists and his colleagues and who asked people not to believe him.
The origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not known but preliminary studies suggested that the bats could be the source since the coronavirus present in bats has a genome that is 96 per cent identical to the novel coronavirus. It is believed that pangolin was the immediate host because the bat coronavirus cannot bind to receptors in human cells, however, there has not been any concrete evidence.