Instagram post shared with text claiming that the novel coronavirus originated in a laboratory.
The claim was shared with a photographic image of Professor Luc Antoine Montagnier, a French virologist, indicating that the claim was attributed to the 2008 Nobel laureate., Prof. Montagnier made the claim during an interview with French television channel CNews on 17 April, and restated it on 22 April in a podcast published by Pourquoi Docteur (Why, Doctor?)., In both interviews, Prof. Montagnier claimed that the genetic sequence of coronavirus contains elements of human-immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which he and his colleague discovered in 1983., He further claimed that the virus was accidentally released from a Chinese laboratory during the development of a vaccine against HIV. However, his argument was based on a paper published on bioRxiv, an open access repository of research papers that are not peer-reviewed, but undergo basic screening and checked against plagiarism. BioRxiv indicates that the paper, which is titled ‘Uncanny similarity of unique inserts in the 2019-nCoV spike protein to HIV-1 gp120 and Gag’, has since been withdrawn by the authors with the intention to revise it in response to comments received on the technical approach used, as well as the interpretation of results., There is consensus in the larger scientific community that SAR-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, originated in animals, with the potential starting point being an open-air market in Wuhan in China’s Hubei province, and not in a laboratory or as an artificially manipulated virus as claimed., On April 21, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) said all available evidence suggests the novel coronavirus originated in animals in China and was not manipulated or produced in a laboratory., PesaCheck has looked into a claim that the novel coronavirus was created in a laboratory and finds it to be FALSE., This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms., By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds., Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content., This fact-check was written by Fact-Checker Simon Muli and edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Enock Nyariki, The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi., PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water/sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org., PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Twaweza, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ)., Written by, Written by
FALSE: There is no evidence that coronavirus was made in a lab