By Liu Caiyu
Beijing: Calls for probes into the US’ mysterious bio-labs in order to better understand coronavirus origins are growing after Russia said it has every reason to believe the US is developing biological weapons in labs mainly near the China-Russia border.
Experts said that investigation of US bio-labs may offer clues to the virus origins; however, the US continues to ignore the international community’s questions over its mysterious bio-labs. Responding to a question about the origin of COVID-19, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said recently that US-controlled biological laboratories appear mainly near Russian and Chinese borders.
And there is good reason to believe the US is developing biological weapons in those labs, and that outbreaks of non-typical diseases have been reported around them.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on Thursday urged the US to respond to concerns and make comprehensive clarifications on biological militarization activities within and outside the US, and stop blocking the establishment of a verification mechanism under the Biological Weapons Convention. Li Wei, a research fellow at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times that a thorough investigation of US bio-labs may offer clues to the virus origin.
The US has set up bio-labs in 25 countries and regions across the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia and former Soviet Union, with 16 in Ukraine alone. Some of the places where the labs are based have seen large-scale outbreaks of measles and other dangerous infectious diseases, the ministry said, citing media reports. The Fort Detrick laboratory that handles high-level disease-causing materials, such as Ebola, in Fredrick, Maryland, was shut after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a cease and desist order against the organization in July 2019, media reported.
USA Today reported that since 2003, hundreds of incidents involving accidental contact with deadly pathogens have occurred in US bio-labs at home and abroad. Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told media that while China opened the Wuhan lab to the scientists with an open and welcoming altitude, the US continues to ignore the international community’s questions.
–The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
