Coronavirus leaked from a research lab in Wuhan

London: British politicians fear that the coronavirus pandemic might have been caused by a leak from a Chinese laboratory, The Mail has revealed.While 'the balance of scientific advice' is still that the deadly virus was first transmitted to humans from a live animal market in Wuhan, a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city is 'no longer being discounted'.

One member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's emergency committee said that while the latest intelligence did not dispute the virus was 'zoonotic' – originating in animals – it did not rule out that the virus first spread to humans after leaking from a Wuhan laboratory.

The $36million institute, based ten miles from the infamous wildlife market in Wuhan, is supposed to be one of the most secure virology units in the world.

The state-run People's Daily newspaper said in 2018 that it was 'capable of conducting experiments with highly pathogenic microorganisms' such as the deadly Ebola virus.

Scientists at the institute were the first to suggest that the virus's genome was 96 per cent similar to one commonly found in bats.

But despite its reputation for high security, there have been unverified local reports that workers at the institute became infected after being sprayed by blood, and then carried the infection into the local population. A second institute in the city, the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control – which is barely three miles from the market – is also believed to have carried out experiments on animals such as bats to examine the transmission of corona viruses.

American biosecurity expert Professor Richard Ebright, of Rutgers University's Waksman Institute of Microbiology, New Jersey, said that while the evidence suggests Covid-19 was not created in one of the Wuhan laboratories.

Prof Ebright said he has seen evidence that scientists at the Centre for Disease Control and the Institute of Virology studied the viruses with only 'level 2' security – rather than the recommended level 4 – which 'provides only minimal protections against infection of lab workers'.

He added: 'Virus collection, culture, isolation, or animal infection would pose a substantial risk of infection of a lab worker, and from the lab worker then the public.'