ST. PETERSBURG, April 27. /TASS/. The coronavirus disease might have escaped from a US biological laboratory and the Russian government should raise the issue of responsibility for the virus' leak, Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia’s State Duma, or lower parliament house, said on Tuesday.

"Since the client states of the United States are silent and the United States itself remains mum as well, one conclusion could be logically drawn: obviously, this is because of a leak from one of the laboratories they have set up across the globe. It would be right for the government to raise these matters," he said at a meeting of the Council of Legislators of the Russian Federation.

He urged the United States to halt research that might have spawned the COVID-19 outbreak. "And, let them think about how to compensate all those countries for the losses they have sustained. The virus was found in Wuhan. But whose laboratory is it? It's an American one, financed by America," he noted.

He did not rule out that work was being conducted to model the virus "and it is being done by the United States." If such research is not stopped, the world "will be held hostage to another similar situation," he warned.

The lower house speaker noted that American laboratories were operating in Georgia and Eastern Europe. "It should be placed under control. <…> these matters should be raised. Let us have a closer look at them," he said, addressing Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova.