Beijing, Jun 5 (IANS): Chinese virologist Li-Meng Yan, who was among the first to suggest Covid-19 leaked from a Wuhan lab, has said that US' top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci's emails prove she was right all along.

Yan was one of the first to research the emerging coronavirus and previously revealed she was forced into hiding after accusing Beijing of a cover-up.

Now, as international leaders finally focus on her Wuhan lab-leak theory, the scientist told Newsmax that Fauci's emails contain "a lot of useful information" suggesting that he always knew more than he revealed, the New York Post reported.

"They verify my work from the very beginning, even from last January, that these people know what happened, but they choose to hide for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and for their own benefits," Yan insisted of the treasure trove of documents released this week.

"He knows all these things," she insisted of Fauci and the apparent gain-of-function work carried out by the now-notorious Wuhan Institute of Virology in the heart of the city where the pandemic first emerged.

One email, she said, showed that "Dr Fauci even back to February 1 last year immediately realised that there would be gain-of-function experiment involved in the Covid-19 virus."

He "definitely" feared that the lab was carrying out the experiments -- which can increase the transmissibility of viruses -- but "was worried not to tell this to the public," the scientists insisted.

Yan has reportedly published three reports on the origins of the coronavirus -- two last year and one in 2021.

In the latest, published on March 31, she insisted Covid was "a product of the bioweapons programme of the CCP government, the network of which includes not only the CCP scientists but also certain overseas scientists and organisations."