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Elliot Ziwira-Senior Writer
On June 3, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called upon the world to “quarantine politics” to win the war against Covid-19, which has played havoc on global economies.
Speaking at the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) virtual first Extraordinary Inter-Sessional Summit of Heads of State and Government of the OACPS, attended by President Mnangagwa, and other regional leaders and representatives, Dr Ghebreyesus said global solidarity was crucial in uniting the world against the virulent new coronavirus.
He aptly pointed out that unlike smallpox, which was defeated through solidarity during the Cold War, Covid-19 has divided the world, which could be devastating on the global landscape.
The need to share health technology could not be overemphasised, Dr Ghebreyesus pointed out then.
By that time the pandemic had killed more than 370 000 people worldwide and infected over six million. Three waves, 4 397 338 deaths, and 209 487 944 infections later, the world is still divided, or even more so, along political lines.
As Dr Ghebreyesus feared and sternly warned against, a more virulent virus is splitting the international community at the seams — the political virus.
It is a contagious virus that wears all the components of hegemony, smearing campaigns, bullying and blame-mongering, where power politics, not science or logic, is used by power-wielders to put spanners in the wheels of progress, targeting some countries, in the name of origin-tracing.
As with all viruses, there is always a source and a spreader, which in all essence has to be probed.
Whereas the Covid-19 origin-tracers, though not yet conclusive, point to multiple sources, as researches so far indicate, the political virus spreader is conspicuous. It is the United States of America, which from the beginning, without proof even, openly christened the virus “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese virus”.
Such conclusive political outbursts in matters scientific are not only divisive, but also impedes progress towards a lasting solution in the fight against Covid-19, which continues to decimate global citizens and wreak economies worldwide.
Political grandstanding, stigmatising and politicising a pandemic is not the way to go, as in the end the combination endangers innocent bystanders.
Miffed by the politicisation of possible origins of Covid-19, more than 300 political parties, organisations and think tanks from over 100 countries and regions submitted a joint statement to the WHO Secretariat on August 2, 2020, calling for a fair investigation.
As has been historically proven, it is not always the case that places where initial cases are reported, automatically become the origins of a virus. HIV infections, for instance, were first reported in the US, but could have originated elsewhere.
Empirical evidence points elsewhere, and not Spain as the source of the so-called Spanish Flu, or Great Influenza of 1918, which killed an estimated 50 million people and infected 500 million others globally.
Kin Phea, a scholar and director-general of the International Relations Institute at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, pointed out in an article recently published in the Phnom Penh Post that tracing the origins of the coronavirus is a complex scientific issue.
It is a matter that should be left to scientists and not fly-by-night “virologists” in political apparel.
While the US was pointing fingers at China as the “culprit”, the Asian economic powerhouse did not take a back step in curbing the spread of the virus, and going all out in tracing its origins. When first cases were identified in Wuhan in December 2019, China immediately reported to the WHO and shared crucial genomic sequence information.
Hiding nothing and responsibly playing its part, since 2020, China has invited WHO experts twice for origin tracing. Leading experts from 10 countries, including the US, the UK, Japan and Australia, joined their Chinese counterparts to conduct a 28-day joint research in China, early this year.
Following field studies, on March 30, the WHO reported that a lab leak was “extremely unlikely”.
Although the US insists on calling the novel coronavirus a “Chinese virus”, and behaved like a petulant child, by withdrawing from the WHO last year, researchers say there are indications that the coronavirus had already broken out in other places by the time it was identified in Wuhan, China.
A research published in the European Journal of Epidemiology suggests that Covid-19 infection may have occurred in Europe in November 2019. According to a US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention report, the virus may have already been in existence in the US in December 2019.
Also, the chief epidemiologist at Sweden’s Public Health Agency said it’s likely that there were cases of the coronavirus in Sweden in November 2019.
The National Cancer Institute (INT) in Milan, released a study suggesting that the virus may have circulated in Italy from the summer of 2019.
As biologist Xinhua reported yesterday, Alexei Deykin, an expert with Valdai Discussion Club, a Russian think tank, affirmed that origin-tracing should be conducted on a global scale, including an investigation into the activities at US biological laboratories.
Warning that biological weapons are much more hazardous than nuclear ones, hence the need for an all-encompassing probe, Deykin said it could not be ruled out that the coronavirus may have been brought to Wuhan by US soldiers during the Military World Games in October 2019.
The molecular biologist told Xinhua in Moscow that “it is quite possible that there were already Covid-19 cases in some countries of the world at the end of 2019,” which however, “were not classified as the novel coronavirus.”
Therefore, to claim that the new coronavirus leaked from a Wuhan lab is “completely unfounded”, he maintained.
With pressure mounting in support of an objective study free of politicking, and the WHO pushing for further investigations into the origins of the coronavirus, the US should come clean by conducting a probe in its own backyard, particularly at Fort Detrick.
However, as China Daily reported on August 9, 2021, prospects for such an investigation are blurred.
“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 daily informed.
Anwar Adams, a councillor in Cape Town, South Africa, averred that the Fort Detrick lab must be probed to determine the origins of SARS-CoV-2, since biosafety occurrences at the laboratory coincided with early 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.
Notwithstanding the more than 37 million infections and 627 000 deaths as of August 17, the US still dithers on conducting investigations into the lab for a possible leak.
Could the US be hiding something?
People’s Republic of China’s State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi told journalists on July 25, 2021 that origin-tracing needed cooperation and not discrediting, truth not lies, and respect for science not political manipulation.
He insisted that the US was using origin-tracing and hyping the “lab leak theory” as a tool to not only discredit and suppress other countries, but to also shift responsibility for their own bungled pandemic response.
Wang Yi articulated that in the spirit of oneness, transparency, science and cooperation, China would not renege on its commitment to support and take part in global origin-tracing efforts, calling on an end to the spreading of the political virus.
The return to the WHO by the US, should be based on joining the international community in its fight against the coronavirus, and not to use it as a platform to spread political viruses, he emphasised.
Nearly 60 countries have sent letters to the WHO, accepting the results of the first phase of origin-tracing research. More than 20 million global citizens have signed an online letter to the global health institution demanding an investigation into the secretive US’s Fort Detrick lab, among America’s over 200 bio laboratories overseas for a better discernment of the origins of Covid-19.
All this was aimed at debunking the politicisation, stigmatisation and spreading of contagious political viruses, which impede human endeavour, destroy life and steal livelihoods.
An early victory over Covid-19, humanity’s common enemy, is only achievable if all and sundry adopt a united attitude and “quarantine” the political virus and lash out at its spreaders with the contempt they deserve.
Online Reporter