Donated doses of a COVID-19 vaccine from China’s Sinovac Biotech, as well as syringes, await unloading at an international airport in Zanzibar, Tanzania, on July 31. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

The World Health Organization is now moving into further investigation into the origins of COVID-19, with international pressure mounting for an objective study.

More than 300 political parties, organizations and think tanks from over 100 countries and regions submitted a joint statement on Aug 2 to the WHO Secretariat, rejecting the politicization of the COVID-19 origin study and calling for an objective, fair investigation.

They pointed out in the statement that the plan proposed by the WHO for the second phase of the origin-tracing investigation will not help to advance global cooperation on tracing the virus origins, as it is inconsistent with the resolution of the 73rd World Health Assembly, did not involve full consultation with member states, and failed to reflect the latest global research outcomes.

They called on the WHO Secretariat to carry out cooperation with member states, give full consideration to new scientific evidence and fully adopt suggestions made by the WHO-China joint report.

The joint statement was issued after nearly 70 countries expressed opposition to politicization of origin-tracing by writing letters to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, issuing statements and sending notes.

Politicians and experts in many countries have also expressed their rejection of attempts by countries such as the United States to politicize COVID-19 origin-tracing, emphasizing that the study of the origin must be based on evidence and science.

Despite the WHO-China joint report issued in March that said a “lab leak” hypothesis was “extremely unlikely”, US politicians, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have still insisted on carrying out a virus origin probe in China.

In a statement issued on July 30, the African National Congress, South Africa’s ruling party, said that it supports science-based inquiries in tracing the origin of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, calls for global cooperation and decries politicization of such inquiries.

At a virtual news briefing on July 30, Philippine Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said that the country shuns politicization of anything related to COVID-19.

Usman Sarki, the former Nigerian deputy representative to the United Nations, told China Central Television on July 30 that the US government is using the China card to address the domestic problems it faces amid the pandemic, instead of truly being interested in finding out the origin of the virus.

Regardless of the facts, the US has tried to cast doubts on the views of scientists with conspiracy theories created by its intelligence officers, thereby politicizing the issue, said Zhang Hanhui, the Chinese ambassador to Russia.

The aim of US pressure on the WHO to conduct so-called independent and transparent investigations is to slander China by any means possible, Zhang said in an interview with Russia’s Interfax news agency.

China has adhered to the principles of openness, transparency and cooperation from the very beginning in investigating the origins of the coronavirus, and has twice invited experts from the WHO to visit China in support of this task, Zhang said.

China recently submitted a proposal to the WHO for the second phase of the COVID-19 origin study in an effort to support and coordinate with the organization in tracing the origins of the virus globally, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said on July 29. The plan emphasizes that the investigation should be led by scientists, based on evidence and carried out in multiple places around the world, Zhao said.

“It is a science-based and professional plan that can stand the test of practice,” he told reporters at a regular news briefing in Beijing.

Zhao said the Chinese plan was submitted before the WHO Secretariat unilaterally proposed a phase-two study plan, which has not received the unanimous consent of its member states and has drawn concern and opposition from many countries, including China.

On July 28, US Secretary of State Blinken said while meeting with WHO Director-General Tedros that the next phase of study into the virus’ origins should be evidence-based, transparent and led by experts.

Despite such claims, Zhao said, Washington is in fact engaged in practicing terrorism under the pretext of origin-tracing by spreading rumors falsely accusing China of a lab leak, trying to link China and even Asian countries to the virus, and suppressing scientists who are trying to make the voice of justice heard.

The US government, despite the millions infected and the many lives lost across the country — more than 35 million and 614,000 respectively, as of Aug 4 — did not conduct any probe of COVID-19 origins at home, such as investigating Fort Detrick for a lab leak, he said.

More than 20 million people have signed an online letter to the WHO demanding a thorough investigation into the secretive US laboratory tainted by a poor safety record in order to gain a better understanding of the origins of the coronavirus. “If the US really wants to support the origin-tracing study, then it should answer this call to invite WHO experts for an investigation in the US in an open and transparent manner,” Zhao said.

The US government has remained silent on the possibility of a link between the Fort Detrick lab and the origin of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It has refused to disclose critical information on the pretext of national security.

The Maryland lab, which has close connections with the US military, stores deadly and infectious viruses, including Ebola, SARS and the novel coronavirus. The facility has a notorious record on lab security, the letter said. There was a leakage incident in the lab in the autumn of 2019, right before the outbreak of COVID-19.

Chinese netizens called on the WHO “to organize an investigation in the Fort Detrick lab and other US labs that have leakage hazards by inviting scientists including those from China, virologists and experts in lab security and chemical weapons who are independent from US geopolitical influence”, the letter said.

Anwar Adams, a councilor in Cape Town, South Africa, said an investigation should be conducted into the Fort Detrick lab to determine the origin of SARS-CoV-2, given that the biosafety incidents that occurred at the lab coincided with the start of COVID-19 outbreaks.

“In particular, the Fort Detrick lab has been identified as one such location where serious origin-tracing of COVID-19 should be investigated,” he said in the article. He added that the sustained politicization of origin-tracing and the propaganda against China point to one thing: The US has something to hide.

Zhao called on the US on July 29 to respond to the appeal of the Chinese netizens, and allow experts from the WHO to conduct investigations into the origin of the novel coronavirus in the US, including in the Fort Detrick lab.

Ian Mackay, virologist and associate professor with the faculty of medicine at the University of Queensland, said that in time, the origins of COVID-19 will be found.

“It will take a lot more sampling of the wildlife coronavirome, genetic sequencing and virus culture to characterize many more of the coronaviruses that inhabit animals other than us, all over the world,” he said.

Amid the politicization of COVID-19 and its origins, some experts have pointed out that China had never disputed that it was the point of origin of the 1957 Asian flu pandemic, the 1968 Hong Kong flu pandemic, the 2002-04 SARS epidemic and the 2013 H7N9 influenza outbreak.

But with the current pandemic, China has been under pressure to give investigators more access amid allegations that SARS-CoV-2 leaked from a research lab in the city of Wuhan, where the first COVID-19 cases emerged in late 2019.

Australian virologist Danielle Anderson, a leading world expert on bat-borne viruses, worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s BSL-4 lab up until November 2019 just as the virus started to circulate in Wuhan.

The US has questioned the lab’s safety and alleged its scientists were engaged in contentious gain-of-function research that manipulated viruses in a manner that could have made these more dangerous.

“Half-truths and distorted information have obscured an accurate accounting of the lab’s functions and activities, which were more routine than how they’ve been portrayed in the media,” Anderson said in an interview with Bloomberg.

Anderson was on the ground in Wuhan when experts believe SARS-CoV-2 was beginning to spread. Daily visits for a period in late 2019 put her in close proximity to many others working at the 65-year-old research center. Anderson said no one she knew at the Wuhan institute was ill towards the end of 2019. Moreover, there is a procedure for reporting symptoms that correspond with the pathogens handled in high-risk containment labs.

Benjamin Neuman, chair of the Biological Sciences Department at Texas A&M University-Texarkana, said some people have tried to use specific features of the SARS-CoV-2 spike gene as evidence it is an artificial virus, but all these features can also be found on other coronaviruses.

Neuman, a member of the international committee that named SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the COVID-19 pandemic, said the explanation that best fits the full set of data is that this new virus probably originated outside a laboratory, in nature, like other known coronaviruses.

A paper by 21 virologists, posted online in June said that focusing on a highly improbable lab origin distracts from the most urgent scientific tasks to “comprehensively investigate the zoonotic origin through collaborative and carefully coordinated studies”.

Stuart Turville, an associate professor in the Immunovirology and Pathogenesis Program at the University of New South Wales’ Kirby Institute, said the origins of the COVID-19 virus is “very complex”, adding the political conversation will only delay the scientific community’s ability to understand the exact source of the virus.

Xinhua contributed to this story.