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The Chi­nese lab­o­ra­to­ry at the cen­tre of sus­pi­cion over the ori­gins of the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic was award­ed a patent for cages to hold live bats for test­ing just months before the virus start­ed spreading.

The rev­e­la­tion comes after the World Health Organ­i­sa­tion last week backed Bei­jing’s line, say­ing that a leak from the insti­tute was ‘high­ly unlike­ly’, while giv­ing cre­dence to the­o­ries that the virus had entered the coun­try via frozen meat.

The team includ­ed Peter Daszak, a British-born zool­o­gist whose organ­i­sa­tion Eco­Health Alliance has stud­ied bat-borne virus­es with Wuhan lab sci­en­tists for 15 years, and who has cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly denied that researchers keep the mam­mals for testing.