Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier inaccurately claims that the novel coronavirus is man-made and contains genetic material from HIV
Genomic analyses of the novel coronavirus shows that it has a natural origin and was not engineered. The claim that the virus has genetic material from HIV is based on a preprint with significant flaws in study design and execution that was later withdrawn by the authors. As it turned out, the so-called “HIV insertions” identified by the authors could also be found in many other organisms apart from HIV, refuting the claim that genetic material from HIV was inserted into the novel coronavirus.