Chinese ambassador demands investigation into US labs for COVID-19 origins tracing

GENEVA - A senior Chinese diplomat said on Tuesday that the labs of Fort Detrick and University of North Carolina in the United States should be subject to "transparent investigation with full access" for the origins tracing of COVID-19.

Ambassador Chen Xu, permanent representative of China to the United Nations (UN) Office at Geneva, said in his letter to World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus that the hypothesis of introduction of SARS-CoV-2 -- the virus that causes COVID-19 -- into human population was caused by lab leak in the Wuhan Institute of Virology is "extremely unlikely".

This is the definite conclusion made in the WHO-convened Global Study of Origins of SARS-CoV-2: China Part, Joint WHO-China Study Team Report, he said.