Washington: US President Joe Biden on Monday signed a bill requiring the disclosure of intelligence data on possible links between the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

"We need to know more about the origins of COVID-19, including any possible connection to the Wuhan Institute of Virology," Biden said in a statement.

“My administration will make public and share as much information as possible in implementing this law,” he continued. He said, I agree with the desire of the Congress to make available as much information as possible about the onset of Kovid.

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According to Biden, he "directed the intelligence community to use every tool they can to investigate" shortly after taking office in 2021.

Although that work is "in progress," he promised that as much as could be disclosed without jeopardizing "national security" would be done. For Biden, who is attempting to navigate a challenging relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the bill presented political risks.

Beijing vehemently denies that a leak from laboratory research in Wuhan could have triggered the global pandemic. However, a large portion of Congress wants to further investigate the theory, and the issue has emerged as a focal point for Biden's Republican rivals. In March, Biden received a bill that had been passed by Congress.

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According to official counts, the COVID-19 outbreak, which began in the eastern Chinese city of Wuhan in 2019, has resulted in nearly seven million deaths worldwide, of which more than one million have occurred in the United States.

However, there is still disagreement between health officials and the US intelligence community over whether the virus was accidentally transmitted from an infected animal to humans or was leaked during study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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The US Department of Energy, one of the US agencies investigating the disaster, reached a conclusion of "low confidence" that the virus most likely originated in a laboratory, which agrees with the FBI's assessment but with the findings of several other agencies. is different.