Terming the latest US intelligence report on origins of COVID-19 as "unscientific", China once again accused Washington of political manipulation of virus probe, which it believes can damage the global efforts in fighting the pandemic.
"When the US intelligence agency released the so-called unclassified summary of assessment on COVID-19 origins in August, China made clear its firm opposition. A lie repeated a thousand times is still a lie," the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Sunday.
The spokesperson added that the fact that the special services were engaged in the research proves that the issue is politicized.
"It can do more harm to the global scientific community in the field of COVID-19 origin research, undermine the international cooperation in fighting with the pandemic, and lead to more human casualties," Wenbin said.
On Friday, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a report elaborating on two possible origins of coronavirus, the natural and the laboratory-associated ones. The US intelligence community considers both options plausible, but does not believe that COVID-19 was developed as a biological weapon, the report said.
"The IC (intelligence community) assesses that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, probably emerged and infected humans through an initial small-scale exposure that occurred no later than November 2019 with the first known cluster of COVID-19 cases arising in Wuhan, China in December 2019," the report said.
Most agencies also assess with low confidence that SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered; however, two agencies believe there was not sufficient evidence to make an assessment either way, it added.
It will be two years soon since the first case of COVID-19 emerged but there are still no clear answers as to how the virus originated and spread to the rest of the world wreaking havoc in many countries.
A WHO-led team of scientists that travelled to China in early this year to investigate the origins of the virus struggled to get a clear picture of what research China was conducting beforehand, faced constraints during its visit, and had little power to conduct thorough and impartial research.
Earlier this month, WHO had launched an expert group to study the origins of new pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had announced the news during his press briefing from Geneva.
"SAGO will advise WHO on the development of a global framework to define and guide studies into the origins of emerging and re-emerging pathogens with epidemic and pandemic potential, including SARS-CoV-2," he had said.
( With inputs from ANI )
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