China’s official news outlets have censored and twisted key parts of at least two studies by European health experts to suggest that COVID-19 originated in Europe, according to those who conducted the research.

In a video posted on Facebook last Wednesday, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency cited research from Italy’s National Cancer Institute which detected COVID-19 antibodies in blood samples from four volunteers who did lung cancer screenings in early October.

The video showed Giovanni Apolone, a researcher who conducted the study, saying: “We found positive cases had been present in the months before the first case was reported in China at the end of December 2019, and before the first case was reported in Italy on February 21, 2020. We found cases in September, October, November and December of 2019.”

Xinhua went on to say that the findings could mean the coronavirus was present in Italy three months before it was first reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan last December.

Apolone later told Radio Free Asia that the crucial parts of his comments on the COVID-19′s origin had been censored by Xinhua.

“At present, all research shows that the virus and pandemic originated from Wuhan,” Apolone said in response to RFA’s inquiry.

“Italy, France and the United States appeared to have discovered the virus before Dec. 31 last year before China officially reported its cases. This was highly likely a communication delay caused by a lack of COVID-19 identification and political factors in the early stage,” he said.

Another expert, German virologist Alexander Kekulé, spoke out against CGTN, a news network under the state-run China Central Television, for twisting his research in its reports.

In its reports on Nov. 28 and last Tuesday, CGTN said the coronavirus had spread to the U.S. and Europe from northern Italy, quoting remarks Kekulé made earlier to German media.

Kekulé had said in an interview that over 99% of COVID-19 cases currently circulating around the world involved a strain of the coronavirus called the G variant that could be traced to northern Italy.

The virologist recently told German media that CGTN had twisted his research to spread false information in an “unscrupulous political propaganda.” He posted a message on social media and said that the coronavirus came from Wuhan.

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