A controversial new draft study, claiming Covid-19 was created by Chinese scientists, has been dropped in the published version.
British professor Angus Dalgleish and Norwegian scientist Dr Birger Sørensen had originally suggested "the likelihood of Covid being the result of natural processes is very small".
They claimed it was created during Gain of Function research in a Chinese lab, which sees scientists alter a virus or pathogen so they can study the development and transmission.
They also alleged the Chinese scientists reverse-engineered versions of the virus to make it look like it evolved naturally from bats, the MailOnline reports.
However, the claims did not appear in the final draft of the paper when it was published in the Quarterly Review of Biophysics Discovery. and the theory that Covid-19 was man-made has been dismissed by the scientific community.
Immunologist expert Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has stated there is no scientific evidence for the claims.
Researchers from the World Health Organization have also dismissed the claims.
Note: This article has been amended after publication to clarify that the original claims by Dalgleish and Sørensen are at odds with general scientific consensus.
