By Chijioke Kingsley
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – In a report released Saturday, the CIA has assessed that the most plausible origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is a lab in Wuhan, China.
The investigation into the virus’s origins was conducted at the request of the Biden administration, though the administration initially declined to make the CIA’s findings public, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
John Ratcliffe, who served as CIA director at the start of the Trump administration, later declassified and released the report.
Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Ratcliffe emphasized the importance of transparency, stating, “It was important for the American public to see an institution like the CIA get off the sidelines and be truthful about what our intelligence shows.”
Ratcliffe explained that the CIA had assessed a lab-related incident in Wuhan as the most likely cause of the global pandemic, which has caused immense devastation worldwide.
He added that investigations would continue to gather further evidence.
While the CIA maintains “low confidence” in this conclusion, the agency confirmed it is open to revising its judgment if credible new intelligence or open-source information emerges.
The CIA is not alone in its assertion. In February 2023, the U.S. Department of Energy also concluded that COVID-19 most likely emerged from a lab-related incident, followed shortly by a similar conclusion from the FBI.
Additionally, a U.S. Senate report published in April 2023 supported the lab leak theory.
Most recently, the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its final report in December 2024, stating that the pandemic “most likely” resulted from gain-of-function research conducted at a Wuhan lab.
The congressional subcommittee presented five key arguments supporting the lab leak theory:
