Wuhan 400: Novel predicted coronavirus 40 years ago, Internet stumped

New Delhi: An excerpt of the Novel "The Eyes of Darkness", a 1981 thriller by bestselling suspense author Dean Koontz is revolving around the social media which tells of a Chinese military lab that creates a virus as part of its biological weapons programme.

In chapter 39 of his book, Koontz writes that the lab is located in Wuhan, which lends the virus its name, Wuhan-400.

Congress leader Manish Tewari has also tweeted excerpts from a book that went viral on the Internet that the coronavirus involved in the outbreak in China's Wuhan appears to be man-made.

"Is Coranavirus a biological Weapon developed by the Chinese called Wuhan -400? This book was published in 1981. Do read the excerpt," Congress leader Manish Tewari tweeted.

Tewari highlighted a paragraph that read: "They call the stuff 'Wuhan-400' because it was developed at their RDNA labs outside of the city of Wuhan, and it was the four hundredth viable strain of man-made micro-organisms created at that centre."

As the post went viral, Twitterati flooded the social media with their reactions.

A user wrote, "Haha Infinite monkey theorem. Pick any event and chances are that some book written at some would have a similar plot . Conspiracy theory has no end."

Another wrote, "Sensational ... No doubt China had replaced Russia and USSR as rogue country in Hollywood films and later James Bond movies."

A post read, "Intriguing for sure, hope the truth comes out."

A user remarked, "Okay if it is then it surely backfired on them!"

By the end of Sunday, a total of 1,770 people had died of the disease and 70,548 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus infection had been reported in 31 provincial-level regions and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in China.