Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), concluded in 2020 that there was an 80% to 90% likelihood that the COVID-19 virus accidentally leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology, according to reports by German newspapers Die Zeit and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The BND’s assessment indicated that the institute had conducted gain-of-function experiments—research that involves modifying viruses to become more transmissible to humans—and had multiple safety violations. This conclusion was based on an intelligence operation named “Saaremaa” and publicly available data. Commissioned by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office, the report was not made public but was shared with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2024.
In January 2025, the CIA also assessed that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin, though it expressed “low confidence” in its assessment.
China’s government has consistently denied these claims, stating that the Wuhan Institute of Virology never conducted gain-of-function research on coronaviruses and was not involved in the creation or leakage of the COVID-19 virus.
The origin of COVID-19 remains a subject of international debate, with investigations ongoing to determine whether the virus emerged naturally or resulted from a laboratory incident.
