Dr T Jacob John, 84, known globally for his extensive work in the fields of virology and paediatrics, believes China is hiding something about COVID-19. Dr John, who headed the ICMR Centre of Advanced Research in Virology and the National HIV/AIDS Reference Centre, at the Christian Medical College, Vellore, where he set up the country's first diagnostic virology laboratory, tells Vinod Kumar Menon why he feels so, the challenge in making a vaccine, and the possible announcement of the same on August 15.

What is your view about COVID-19? Is it man made or natural, and if natural, when and where did it first originate?
In 2013, investigators had looked for bat viruses in Yunan Province in caves and had detected a coronavirus which matches 96.2% genetically with SARS-CoV-2. So it is most likely to be a natural bat virus. How the bat virus got into humans in Wuhan is unknown, unexplained. Yunan bats do not fly over Wuhan. Live bats were not sold in the Wuhan market. Either the infection did not start in Wuhan or it could have accidentally infected humans in the Wuhan Virology Institute where research on coronaviruses was going on. I suspect China has not told the world the truth, all the truth and nothing but the truth.