The US government had reportedly funded $3.7 million to the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan which has been at the centre of speculations surrounding coronavirus outbreak.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology is believed to have conducted coronavirus experiments on mammals captured from the caves of Yunnan, China, with the US money.

According to documents obtained by British media outlet Daily Mail, scientists there experimented on bats as part of a project funded by the US National Institutes of Health, which continues to licence the Wuhan laboratory to receive American money for experiments.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services responsible for biomedical and public health research.

Research into the sequencing of the COVID-19 has traced the virus back to bats in the Yunnan caves. The Wuhan Institute of Virology is one of the most advanced laboratories in China. It is situated 20 miles from the animal market from where the coronavirus is believed to have first transferred to a human.

The revelation that the US government was funding the lab doing research on bats in Wuhan has added fuel to the conspiracy theory which suggests that that the Wuhan lab was the actual place of origin of the coronavirus pandemic, not the animal market. Soon after this discovery US lawmakers, pressure groups hit out at the US government for funding dangerous and cruel experiments at the Wuhan Insititute.

US Congressman Matt Gaetz said, "I'm disgusted to learn that for years the US government has been funding dangerous and cruel animal experiments at the Wuhan Institute, which may have contributed to the global spread of coronavirus, and research at other labs in China that have virtually no oversight from US authorities."

While Anthony Bellotti, President of the US pressure group White Coat Waste, said, "'Animals infected with viruses or otherwise sickened and abused in Chinese labs reportedly may be sold to wet markets for consumption once experiments are done."

Earlier in April, a $20 trillion lawsuit had been filed in the US against Chinese authorities over coronavirus outbreak. American lawyer Larry Klayman and his advocacy group Freedom Watch along with Texas company Buzz Photos had sought $20 trillion from China claiming coronavirus is the result of a biological weapon prepared by the Chinese authorities.

The United States is one of the worst countries to have been hit by the coronavirus. The country now has both the highest number of cases in the world as well as the highest number of deaths. The US has recorded 560,433 cases on coronavirus while 22,115 have lost their lives to the deadly disease.

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