DISINFO: The US involved in the release of COVID-19 from a laboratory in Wuhan
SUMMARY
Representatives from the US and other Western countries not only participated but also directly financed controversial and high-risk experiments in the laboratory in Wuhan, China. Data from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) from last year revealed that specialists from EcoHealth Alliance conducted joint analysis and worked with Shenyang Agricultural University, the Beijing Institute of Pathogen Biology, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The president of EcoHealth Alliance confirmed that American scientists have had access to the Chinese laboratories for years. The US is trying to turn the tables around and blame China for the virus.
RESPONSE
The claim that the US is secretly developing biological weapons, including dangerous pathogens, in laboratories around the world is a recurrent pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative that has been thoroughly debunked in this database. The COVID-19 pandemic that started in early 2020 was incorporated in this narrative, with pro-Kremlin outlets falsely claiming that the US was somehow involved in the development and leak of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
The overwhelming consensus among scientists and medical experts is that SARS-CoV-2 has all the characteristics of a naturally occurring virus. Numerous peer-reviewed scientific studies from reputable academic journals have shown substantial empirical evidence that the virus is naturally occurring. According to scientists, the molecular structure of the virus excludes the possibility that it was human-made.
The Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is under the administration of Chinese authorities and not the US as the pro-Kremlin outlet claims, have referred to the conspiracy theory of a laboratory leak as “total fabrication”.
No evidence exists to support the Kremlin’s allegations about the development of biological weapons by the US in secret laboratories. This claim has been repeatedly debunked by independent fact-checkers and experts who have visited the sites in question and found nothing suspicious. In fact, most of these labs are actively engaged in fighting dangerous diseases and viruses, including COVID-19. Many of the labs are part of the US Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP), which has previously been implemented in Russia, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine with the approval of the host countries. The goal of the BTRP is to safeguard global health by preventing and containing the outbreak of infectious diseases and establishing high international standards in biological security. The president of the non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, who is an expert on infectious diseases, has publicly discussed the details surrounding the natural occurrence of the virus and has expressed his professional opinion that it was most likely transferred to humans from bats.
Read similar cases of disinformation in the database claiming that COVID-19 was released from a US lab, that the COVID-19 pandemic is a global conspiracy in the interests of the global elite, that Ukrainian migrant workers brought COVID-19 to Spain and Italy from secret US labs, and that the Masters of Darkness invented the COVID-19 and seek world domination.