Misleading: The Obama administration gave nearly $4 million to the Wuhan lab where the coronavirus allegedly leaked from.

By: Annie Priya
July 17 2021

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The U.S NIH had funded research projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology to study the SARSr-Cov in 2015, but these are unrelated to the SARS-CoV2.According to an article published by scientific journal, Nature, the 2015 research studies on the coronavirus emerging from bats in China were funded by the United States National Institutes of Health. The research published by PLOS was of SARS-related coronaviruses (SARSr-CoV) which had been detected in horseshoe bats since 2005 in different areas of China and was related to a chimeric virus made up of a surface protein of SHC014, the backbone of a SARS virus that had been adapted to grow in mice and to mimic human disease. Both studies were conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to a news release issued by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the study on bats was a collaboration between scientists from EcoHealth Alliance, Duke-NUS Medical School, Wuhan Institute of Virology, and other organizations, and was funded by the U.S. government. However, there is no evidence to prove the exact amount issued by the U.S. government to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for the research. Furthermore, studies conducted on bats were regarding the SARS-Cov (SARS Coronavirus) years before the COVID-19 outbreak. Research published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (PubMed Central) has stated that there is no credible evidence to show that the 2019 coronavirus originated from a lab. The claim stated above is misleading. The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19 including symptoms, prevention and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organisation or your national healthcare authority. The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to a lot of potentially dangerous misinformation. For reliable advice on COVID-19, including symptoms, prevention, and available treatment, please refer to the World Health Organization or your national healthcare authority.