Scholar says COVID-19 origin tracing should extend to multiple countries

PHNOM PENH -- A prominent scholar has called for an end to the politicization of uncovering the origins of COVID-19, saying that a thorough study should be extended to secretive bases and biological laboratories in other countries where early cases were detected.

In an article published in the Phnom Penh Post newspaper on Thursday, Kin Phea, director-general of the International Relations Institute at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, said that tracing the disease's origins is a serious scientific issue.

"It should be made in other secretive bases and biological laboratories all over the world where the early case of COVID-19 was found," he said, adding that since the outbreak of the pandemic, a blame game regarding the origins of the virus has been targeted at China.

From the beginning, the United States failed to manage the pandemic. It ignored the hard work of scientists and used intelligence means to carry out origin tracing, hyped the "lab leak theory" and politicized the pandemic, Phea said.

In February 2021, a joint expert team from China and the World Health Organization visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology and had in-depth and candid exchanges with experts there, he said.

Members of the joint expert team spoke highly of the institute's openness and transparency, and reached the conclusion that a lab leak was extremely unlikely, he added.