Is conspiracy theory of US creating coronavirus true?

While the spread of Coronavirus in China has been creating global panic, a conspiracy theory suggesting involvement of the US in creation of the virus has also been doing the rounds on social media. However, is the conspiracy theory correct? The answer seems to be in negative.

A Facebook post has been going viral that claims that the recent Coronavirus discovered in China's Wuhan was "lab created and patented in 2015" by CDC, the leading US public health agency. The conspiracy theory alleges that the US created and patented the virus to make profits by selling the vaccine. Several other tweets and posts on the same line are also being made on social media.

However, the allegations are apparently untrue. According to AFP Fact Check, the conspiracy theory has been created on the assumption that there is only one coronavirus, whereas, there are multiple types of the fatal virus.

The report stated that the patent, which is mentioned in the post, is linked with the SARS coronavirus that had arisen in 2002-2003 in China. The SARS coronavirus had caused havoc across the globe, affecting 8.000 people and causing around 900 deaths. The new virus has similarity with the SARS but they are not exactly the same.

“This is a patent covering the sequence of the 2003 SARS-CoV which differs by 25 percent as compared to the Wuhan CoV,” AFP quoted Ralph Baric, a specialist in coronaviruses at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health as confirming.

Meanwhile, the Wuhan virus has already claimed 26 lives across China, focing the Chinese authorities to quarantine 41 million people. There are reports of the coronavirus reaching various parts of the globe including the US, France and Australia.