(Beijing) Beijing vigorously disputed on Monday the hypothesis now favored by the United States Department of Energy (DoE) according to which the COVID-19 would come from a laboratory accident in China, considering itself “dirty” by these new accusations .
“We should stop agitating this theory of a laboratory leak, stop smearing China and stop politicizing the search for the origins of the virus,” said a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. , Mao Ning, during a regular press briefing.
Beijing was reacting to the recent change in analysis within the US Department of Energy, which oversees biology laboratories, and which would now retain – “with a low level of confidence” – the track of a laboratory leak in China, on the basis of a new report from an intelligence agency revealed on Sunday by the wall street journal and the New York Times.
“Experts from China and the WHO, based on field visits to laboratories in Wuhan and in-depth exchanges with researchers, have established the authoritative conclusion that the option of a leak from a lab is highly unlikely,” insisted M.me Ning.
In a reaction on Monday, the World Health Organization said it “has seen the press articles, but has not received any information” on this subject.
“WHO and SAGO [Groupe consultatif scientifique sur les origines des nouveaux agents pathogènes, NDLR] will continue to examine all available scientific evidence that could help advance knowledge of the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and we call on China and the scientific community to undertake the necessary studies for this,” said Tarik Jašarević , a spokesperson for the organization.
“Pending more elements, all hypotheses remain on the table,” he added.
Three years after the start of the pandemic, the origin of the virus which has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide and shaken the march of the globe remains however still undetermined.
In February 2021, WHO experts and Chinese scientists had judged the trail of an accident at the Chinese virology institute in Wuhan “highly improbable”, and favored the hypothesis of a natural origin of the virus and of transmission to humans by an “intermediate” animal.
Since then, the hypothesis of laboratory manipulation coupled with an accidental leak has however resurfaced, particularly in the United States where this track is, according to the wall street journalnotably retained by the FBI.
A sign that the debate remains open in the United States, four American intelligence agencies believe that COVID-19 is of natural origin and two remain undecided, according to the review of the wall street journal.
“As of now, no definitive response from the intelligence community has emerged on the matter,” White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on CNN on Sunday.
In mid-February, WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus personally pledged to do everything to obtain “an answer” on the origins of COVID-19, strongly denying reports that the organization had given up on finalizing its investigation on the subject.