MP Agil Abbas said in an interview with Baku TV that COVID-19 was created artificially in the laboratory.
"Certain powers in the world are pursuing a policy of saying that the virus is caused by a bat. What happened? Nothing was caused by the bat for a thousand years but it came out the next day? It is an artificial disease created in the laboratory," he said.
Fakt Yoxla examined whether the MP's claim was true.
The US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says coronaviruses are a family of viruses that spread among humans and animals. Coronaviruses can cause respiratory infections in humans, from the common cold to more serious illnesses. Coronavirus strains that have emerged in recent years are more dangerous and cause death.
The Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus, which appeared in Wuhan, China, in December 2019 and killed more than 3 million people, has spread to many countries, including Azerbaijan.
Although there are various speculations about the origin of the virus, there is no evidence that it was created artificially in the laboratory. In a study conducted by researchers from the World Health Organization (WHO), China, and other countries, various allegations about the origin of the virus have been investigated. Researchers say all of the world's top biosafety laboratories need to be inspected to prove this claim.
The 27 scientists, who said the allegations were politically motivated, made a statement in support of Chinese scientists and public health and medical professionals fighting the COVID-19 in the world-renowned medical journal The Lancet, saying that the virus was of natural origin and came from the wild.
In a study organized by the WHO, places where animals are sold, including a market in Wuhan, were indicated as a possible source of the virus. Eddie Holmes, a virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, also supported the spread of the virus at the market, saying that research showed that the virus was transmitted to humans through a carrier animal.
According to a report released by the WHO on April 23, 2020, the findings do not reflect the possibility that the virus was developed in the laboratory: “All available evidence for COVID-19 suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has a zoonotic source. Many researchers have been able to look at the genomic features of SARS-CoV-2 and have found that evidence does not support that SARS-CoV-2 is a laboratory construct. A constructed virus would show a mix of known elements within genomic sequences – this is not the case.”
So far, there is no evidence that the virus was developed in the laboratory by certain powers.
Fakt Yoxla concludes that the deputy's claim is a conspiracy theory.
