Dr Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert from the United States, asked China to share the medical records of the nine people whose illness could provide important clues to understand if COVID-19 first emerged due to a lab leak. Fauci said, “I would like to see the medical records of the three people who are reported to have got sick in 2019. Did they really get sick, and if so, what did they get sick with?”, Reuters quoted Financial Times.

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Chinese officials and scientists repeatedly rejected the speculations of a lab leak, saying that coronavirus might have been circulated before it reached Wuhan, the city where the first case of COVID-19 was reported. They added that the virus also could have entered through wildlife trading or imported frozen food. Investigations on where the virus originated from have been underway. The intelligence agencies in the US have been examining reports of a virology laboratory in Wuhan from a month before the first COVID-19 case was reported, reported Reuters.

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Fauci believes that humans first contracted the virus through an animal, adding that if the lab researchers had COVID-19, they were infected by a wider population, reported NDTV.

Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson of the foreign ministry of China, refused to directly comment about whether or not China would release the records of the nine patients but strongly denied the lab leak hypothesis.