Wuhan lab describes President Trump's claim Covid-19 came from there as 'pure fabrication'
A virus research lab in the Chinese city at the centre of the Covid-19 outbreak says none of the bat viruses it was studying match the strain of the virus.
It follows the claim by US President Donald Trump the virus could have been released from the Wuhan facility.
However, the director of the centre has told Chinese state television that is "pure fabrication".
Dr Wang Yanyi says researchers there had never seen the virus before December 30, when it received its first sample, just a day before the World Health Organisation was informed of the outbreak.
It comes as President Trump visited one of his golf courses at the start of the Memorial Day holiday weekend as he urged states to reopen following coronavirus-related lockdowns.
However, many Americans remain cautious as the number of confirmed cases across the nation passed 1.6 million.
Wang Yanyi was quoted by state media today as saying the institute did not have “any knowledge before that nor had we ever met, researched or kept the virus … We didn’t even know about the existence of the virus, so how could it be leaked from our lab when we didn’t have it?”
President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have repeatedly said they suspect the virus that was first detected in Wuhan was somehow released from the laboratory.
Most scientists say the pathogen that has infected 5.3 million and killed more than 342,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, was passed from bats to humans via an intermediary species likely sold at a wet market in Wuhan late last year.
The virus’ toll continued to ebb in Asia and other parts of the world, with China on Sunday reporting three new confirmed cases and just 79 people remaining in treatment for Covid-19.
