ABBEY MAKOE
LEADING political elites in South Africa have joined a chorus of global scientists by expressing public support for the People’s Republic of China’s efforts to keep politics out of the Covid-19 origin-tracing studies.
The World Health Organisation’s (WHO) in a joint study with the Chinese health authorities launched a 34-member team of experts from around the world to investigate the actual origins of SARS-Cov-2. The study followed repeated unsubstantiated claims in some sections of the Western media that the Covid-19 virus first emerged through a leak in a Wuhan laboratory in China.
In March this year, the joint WHO-China study group of a team of experts released their findings into Covid-19 origin-tracing, which looked into humans, animals and the environment.
All the scientists involved “unanimously agreed” that there were neither grounds nor shred of evidence to link the Covid-19 origin to the Wuhan lab leak theory.
Immediately afterwards, Chinese authorities urged the WHO to leave no stone unturned and “seek answers across regions world-wide”.
Covid-19 origin-tracing is very complicated since no conclusive scientific evidence has yet been produced to the effect that the pandemic started in China’s Wuhan laboratory.
Discourse in Scientific epistemology points to look-alike symptoms that erupted in Europe and the Americas around the same time that Coronavirus was spotted in China as factors of interest.
But the US has brushed aside the March 2021 findings by the WHO-China joint study group that found no evidence or link in the origins of SARS-Cov-2 to the Wuhan laboratory.
The Biden administration has since ordered the US intelligence services to conduct their own probe into the Covid-19 origins and submit a report to the Oval office within 90 days.
This sparked concerns that Washington was politicising the issue over its Geopolitical differences with Beijing.
Many experts have stood by the WHO-China joint study group’s findings. They include South Africa’s Prof Salim Abdool Karim, the director of the Centre for the AIDS Program of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA).
Abdool Karim has been in the forefront of SA’s efforts to flatten the curve of Covid-19. Speaking to the Chinese network Phoenix TV recently, Karim said: “It’s very important that we identify sources of new viruses because it gives us clues as to what we can expect in the future. For example, we understand that the first SARS-Cov Coronavirus probably came from bats via civets into humans. We need to ensure that we collect the data to understand that for SARS-Cov-2.”
He continued: “We must do that in a scientifically rigorous way. This is not a time for political posturing and finger pointing. This is a time for cool heads to make sure we collect the scientific evidence. And we need all the authorities to cooperate. We need to do so in a transparent way so that all the different possibilities are explored. The evidence is collected and the answers are obtained. It’s in everyone’s interest to get an answer that is scientifically credible.”
The WHO has said it was particularly pleased with cooperation from China during the origin-tracing investigation, the first country to carry out joint research with the WHO on Covid-19-origins.
Zoologist Peter Daszak, who was a member of the WHO-China research team, says claims from some quarters in the US that Coronavirus was caused by a spill-over from a laboratory in Wuhan is factually inaccurate. “The evidence says extremely unlikely,” he said. “And that was a unanimous opinion. It’s not worth continuing that pathway of thought.”
Professor Walter Ian Lipkin, professor of Epidemiology at the Columbia University in the US believes strongly in collaborative work among the experts. “The origin-tracing work needs to shift away from blame – it’s Chinese, or Malaysia or US, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Viruses don’t recognise borders. They are everywhere. We need to ensure that the very best minds in the world focus on this probe,” he said.
Speaking on the Chinese global news network CGTN’s programme, World Insight, Scientist Dr George Gao Fu, Director of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, said: “As there is no evidence yet on where the virus originated I am calling on everybody to calm down. Let’s work together to figure out where the virus originated. From the Chinese standpoint, we are also eager to find out where the virus came from because this will help us for the future. Let’s leave this (probe) in the hands of scientists.”
Meanwhile, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and its alliance partner, the SA Communist Party (SACP), have both issued separate statements calling for the de-politicisation of Covid-19 origin-tracing studies.
“The ANC supports scientific-based inquiries into the origin-tracing of Covid-19 pandemic and urges for global cooperation and decries politicisation of such inquiries,” the party, which has been ruling in SA since the dawn of democracy in 1994, said.
SACP statement read: “The world should commend the role of scientists from China and 10 other countries under the leadership of the WHO in undertaking the research on the scientific field of Covid-19 origin or source tracing. China has particularly been open to the scientific endeavour, contrary to the propaganda spread by the Western imperialist media.”
The statement continued: “The SACP rejects with contempt moves to politicise scientific research in the interests of imperialist global agendas. In this era of pandemics, scientific collaboration across our globe is critical for progress and the protection of human society.”
The SACP said the rejection by the US of the findings of the WHO-China study group was an attempt to “vilify China”.
“Virus origin or source tracing is a scientific undertaking. The SACP denounces attempts at politicising scientific research. The international community should look at the issue of virus origin or source tracing in a science-based, objective and fair manner, conducted with intellectual rigour, in the interest of advancing global anti-pandemic cooperation,” the SACP said.
A statement from the Chinese embassy in SA read: “The US government has, regrettably, once again sought to play up the issue of origin-tracing, resulting in its politicization as well as a growing tendency toward ignoring science and even anti-science. This whole thing is turning into a political farce.”
It continued: “Since the outbreak, the US has been bent on going down the road of politicization, stigmatization and ideological framing. Frankly speaking, the atmosphere for global cooperation on origin-tracing has been poisoned severely by the US. More and more scientists doubt whether there are still conditions at the moment for serious scientific collaboration.”
It concluded: “Origin-tracing is a scientific matter that requires international cooperation of scientists across the globe. The vast majority of countries in the international community agree that this issue should not be wantonly politicized.”
