Former MI6 chief amps up fears coronavirus came from Wuhan lab
The former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) has fanned fears that the coronavirus pandemic is the result of a Chinese lab leak, after scientists raised fresh questions over the outbreak of Covid-19.
Sir Richard Dearlove, who served as chief of MI6 from 1999 to 2004, departed from the prevailing theory that the pandemic was not man-made by reaffirming his view that the virus accidentally escaped from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the first cases of coronavirus were recorded.
Dearlove told Sky News: “I subscribe to the theory… that it’s an engineered escapee from the Wuhan Institute [of Virology].”
“I am not saying anything other than it was the result of an accident and that the virus is the consequence of gain-of-function experiments that were being conducted in Wuhan, which I don’t think are particularly sinister.”
The former spy chief urged officials to investigate the theory, adding: “There is an accumulation of evidence that this is something that has to be openly discussed in the scientific community.”
“If we are going to have an inquiry in the UK — which I’m sure will happen — about the pandemic and government policy, it will have to start with the science. Where did this virus actually come from?”
It comes amid fresh questions from scientists about the origins of the virus, as officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) prepare to fly to China this week to investigate the origins of the pandemic, which has so far killed more than 500,000 people around the world.
An investigation by the Sunday Times today found evidence that China failed to share information relating to an earlier version of the virus.
The closest known match to the Covid-19 strain was found seven years ago by Chinese scientists in an abandoned mine and was linked to deaths caused by a coronavirus-type respiratory illness, the Sunday Times found.
The virus was subsequently stored at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is alleged to have been “carrying out high-risk experiments to increase the infectivity of coronaviruses in an attempt to understand the mechanisms that might cause a pandemic”.
US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic, claimed in April he had seen evidence it had come from a laboratory.
The current prevailing scientific theory is that the virus originated from a large-scale wet market in Wuhan, which sells animals such as bats and pangolins that are now known to spread the virus.
The bulk of the original 41 cases of Covid-19 reported to WHO in December were linked to the 116-acre Wuhan market, which led to its temporary closure on 1 January.
However, the Chinese Centre of Disease Control and Prevention is now investigating the theory that the market in Wuhan was a “victim” of coronavirus rather than the source of it.
WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyeus this week said the science body will now be revisiting theories surrounding the source of the virus.
“We can fight the virus better when we know everything about the virus, including how it started,” he said.