It was in November 2019 that the first coronavirus case in the globe was discovered in Wuhan, China. The virus soon spread like wildfire and emerged as a global pandemic. Ever since the Covid outbreak, several countries including the United States alleged China as the origin point of the virus.
However, the Asian giant repeatedly denied it and claimed that the pandemic might have originated somewhere in Europe months before it was detected in China. And now, a team of investigators appointed by the World Health Organization (WHO) has visited a virus research laboratory in China's central city of Wuhan to trace the origin of the virus.
WHO officials meet Batwoman
According to a Thomson Reuters report, the investigators spent about 3-1/2 hours at the heavily-guarded Wuhan Institute of Virology. Earlier, several conspiracy theorists had claimed that the coronavirus might have escaped accidentally from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The WHO investigators also talked with Dr Shi Zhengli, a prominent Chinese virologist, who is popularly known as Batwoman. The virologist has been long focussing on bat coronaviruses, and it garnered her the nickname 'Batwoman'.
Amid speculations of a virus leak, Shi has several times denied these claims, and at one point in time, she also claimed that the statements from former US president Donald Trump connecting China and coronavirus literally contradict the facts.
However, some experts believe that a virus captured from the wild could have leaked during some experiments conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to reports, the WHO investigation team visiting China for about weeks is hopefully striving to trace the exact origin of COVID-19.
Coronavirus: Latest statistics
Even after one year of its outbreak, coronavirus is showing no signs of slowing down, and quoting the words of US virology expert Anthony Fauci, this pandemic has emerged as a "perfect storm with no end in near sight". According to the latest statistics, there are more than 100 million reported cases worldwide, and the death toll has already crossed 2.2 million.
