Covid-19: Scientist Andrew Huff backs Wuhan lab leak claims

A whistleblower who worked at the Wuhan lab has called Covid-19 one of the “biggest intelligence failures” in history.

A scientist who worked at a research lab in China has claimed that Covid-19 was a man-made virus that leaked from the facility, according to a report.

Epidemiologist Andrew Huff, who worked for a New York-based non-profit that studied viruses, said Covid was leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, The New York Post reports.

In his new book, The Truth About Wuhan, he blames authorities for the “biggest US intelligence failure since 9/11” and claims lax security led to a leak at the Wuhan lab.

Virologist Shi Zheng-li works with her colleague in the P4 lab of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in February 2017. Picture: Feature China/Barcroft Media via Getty Images

“Foreign laboratories did not have the adequate control measures in place for ensuring proper biosafety, biosecurity, and risk management, ultimately resulting in the lab leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” Dr Huff wrote in his book, which was exclusively excerpted in The Sun.

Some experts believe that the virus could have escaped through an infected scientist or the improper disposal of waste from the facility.

Both China and the lab have furiously denied any leak allegations.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organisation, reportedly told a European politician that he feared that the virus escaped from the lab in “a catastrophic accident” in 2019, according to the Mail Online.

The World Health Organisation team investigating the origins of the coronavirus arrive at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan. Picture: AFP

This aerial view shows the P4 laboratory on the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province. Picture: AFP

Dr Huff, who worked at EcoHealth Alliance from 2014 to 2016, told The Sun that the non-profit helped the Wuhan lab put together the “best existing methods to engineer bat coronaviruses to attack other species” for many years.

“China knew from day one that this was a genetically engineered agent,” Dr Huff wrote.

“The US government is to blame for the transfer of dangerous biotechnology to the Chinese. “I was terrified by what I saw,” the army veteran from Michigan told The Sun.

“We were just handing them bioweapon technology.”