Covid did not originate in an infamous south Chinese bat cave at the centre of the 'lab leak' theory, a French study has claimed.
The Mojiang cave has been touted as the possible birthplace of the virus after it emerged six miners were struck down with a mysterious flu-like illness in 2012.
Scientists from the now-infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) were sent in to investigate at the time and sent bat samples back to the lab 1,000 miles away.
One of the viruses they collected is the closest known relative to the one that causes Covid, sharing almost 97 per cent of its genetic make-up.
Proponents of the lab leak theory believe that either the miners were infected with an early version of Covid or that the pandemic-causing pathogen was the result of experiments on viruses sent back to Wuhan.
But French researchers now say neither could be true after a retrospective study into the medical reports of the miners at the time.
They said their symptoms were too different to be Covid and questioned why no hospital staff or close contacts of the miners fell ill.
Writing in the study, they added: 'One must also wonder why a virus which killed more than 4 million and infected more than 200 million in 18 months did not cause any illness in 7 years from 2012 to 2019.'
They added that RATG13 - the virus which closely resembles Covid and was found in horseshoe bats in Mojiang - was not capable of infecting humans and there was no evidence to suggest tinkering with it in a lab could give it that ability.
However, one of the lead scientists behind the latest study had ties to the lab in Wuhan, raising a possible conflict of interest.
Horseshoe bats are known carriers of the viruses and scientists believe they may be the culprit for the pandemic
Researchers from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were the first to link SARS and bats for the first time during a study in 2004 after raiding a cave in Yunnan province (pictured at the time). This cave is not the one in question
The WIV is the high security lab which specialises in manipulating dangerous coronaviruses at the centre of the alleged cover-up. Pictured: Researchers in the lab in February 2017
The six miners struck down with the mystery pneumonia had been sent into the cave in Mojiang to clear bat guano in April 2012. They were aged between 30 and 63, and three died as a result of their infection.
The latest study, led by the Roger Frutos, a microbiologist at the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development, said hospital records highlighted 'major discrepancies' between their illnesses and Covid's typical symptoms.
