Washington: The National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) has warned that the efforts made by the Chinese Communist Party to obtain US health data had stepped up during the corona pandemic.

Amid the strain relationship between US and China, NCSC has warned that China has increased the efforts to get US health data particularly DNA, through hacking. In a fact sheet, NCSC said, "For years, the People's Republic of China (PRC) has collected large healthcare data sets from the US and nations around the globe, through both legal and illegal means, for purposes only it can control." He further added, "The PRC's collection of healthcare data from America poses equally serious risks, not only to the privacy of Americans but also to the economic and national security of the US."

NCSC noted that these efforts had increased during the corona pandemic, with Chinese biotech group BGI offering COVID-19 testing kits to the majority of countries and establishing 18 testing labs over the past six months alone, allegedly as part of an effort to obtain health data. 

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