A Chinese scientist who vanished after she was dubbed 'the world's first Covid patient' is still missing despite a year-long manhunt amid fears of a state cover-up.
Huang Yanling was named as Patient Zero in early online reports shared widely throughout China last February, when the magnitude of the deadly virus was first coming to light.
The researcher, who worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology is thought to have been the first to contract Covid in autumn 2019, before it was officially acknowledged.
The claims suggested a link between the pandemic and the institute - which houses zoonotic bat diseases - and sparked fears the bug had been accidentally leaked during experiments.