Tracing origins of COVID-19 is scientific, not political issue: analyst

KAMPALA - It is important to stop politicizing COVID-19 and conduct science-based studies to identify the true origins of the coronavirus and its pathway to humans, a Ugandan analyst has said.

The US report on COVID-19 origins tracing has ruled out the possibility that the virus was developed as a biological weapon, and suggested that it probably "was not genetically engineered," Allawi Ssemanda, executive director of Development Watch Center, said in an article published at the New Vision website on Wednesday.

The hypothesis of a "lab leak" as a possible source of the virus was concluded to be "extremely unlikely" by the report of the China-World Health Organization joint mission, said the scholar in the article, noting that other scientific studies conducted by renowned scholars and scientists have also hinted at natural causes as the source of the virus.

"The 'lab leak theory' and 'China virus' are conspiracies whose aim is to create a narrative that China (should) be held accountable for the COVID-19 outbreak, which plays in political interests of some countries," scholars from Uppsala University and Swedish Research Council were quoted in this article as saying.