Theories suggesting that the coronavirus was, in fact, man-made and did not originate in bats are not new, but a new argument, suggesting that the Chinese manufactured it in an attempt to find something else is taking the scientific world by storm.
French virologist and medicine Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier sparked controversy Sunday when he claimed that the virus – officially called SARS-CoV-2 – was not only man-made but is the result of a Chinese attempt to produce a vaccine against AIDS.
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Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions known since 1981. With no known vaccine or cure, it is considered an ongoing global pandemic.
According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, as of 2018, there were approximately 37.9 million people across the globe with HIV/AIDS. Of these, 36.2 million were adults and 1.7 million were children under the age of 15. About 1.7 million individuals worldwide became infected with HIV every year.
According to the Times of India, in an interview with French media, Montagnier alleged that the current global pandemic was the result of an "industrial accident" that took place in the Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory, which specializes in dealing with coronaviruses.
The term "coronavirus" represents a group of related viruses that cause diseases in mammals and birds. In humans, coronaviruses cause respiratory tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. The condition caused by the current pandemic has been dubbed COVID-19, simply standing for "coronavirus disease 2019."
This claim emerged as the US announced it was launching an investigation into reports suggesting a bioengineered virus "leaked" from a Chinese lab.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that, "we're doing a full investigation of everything we can to learn how it is the case that this virus got away, got out into the world and now has created so much tragedy – so much death – here in the US and all around the world."
He said the US knew that the Wuhan lab "contained highly contagious materials."
Montagnier is considered a controversial figure in scientific circles, and at least two of his previous research studies – electromagnetic waves emitted by DNA (DNA teleportation) and on the benefits of papaya in AIDS or Parkinson cure – have been panned by his peers, the Times of India said.
Another French virologist Etienne Simon-Loriere of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, claimed this week that Montagnier's argument "doesn't make sense. These are very small elements that we find in other viruses of the same family, other coronaviruses in nature."
There are multiple theories claiming that COVID-19 originated from genetic manipulation but China has refuted allegations that the coronavirus may have originated in a Wuhan laboratory. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian cited the World Health Organization and other unnamed medical experts as saying that there was no evidence that transmission began from the laboratory and there was "no scientific basis" for such claims.
