MOSCOW, March 1. /TASS/. Wuhan’s research institutes have not studied anything forbidden related to the novel coronavirus infection, Anna Popova, the head of Russia’s consumer rights watchdog (Rospotrebnadzor), said on Wednesday.

"Regarding Wuhan. A staffer of our research center, the Pasteur Institute operating under Rospotrebnadzor, was on the commission of the World Health Organization (WHO). <...> This is first-hand information. They were studying nothing forbidden there. It’s absolutely impossible to confirm that they lost [the virus], that it leaked out. The security system there is of high quality," she said at a meeting of a committee in the State Duma.

A joint report by the WHO and China, released in March 2021 following an international mission to Wuhan, said that the most likely scenario for the emergence of COVID-19 was the transfer of the disease from bats to another animal, which later infected humans. However, experts have not come to a final conclusion yet on how exactly the virus got into Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market. There have been speculations about its laboratory origin.