Beijing - China on Friday criticised the theory that the Coronavirus pandemic may have originated as a leak from a Chinese laboratory as a politically motivated lie. The comments came after a report on Thursday by the World Health Organization that a deeper probe is needed into whether a lab accident may be to blame.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian also rejected accusations that China had not fully cooperated with investigators, saying it welcomed a science-based probe but rejected any political manipulation.

He also reiterated calls for an investigation into “highly suspicious laboratories such as Fort Detrick and the University of North Carolina” in the United States where China has suggested, without evidence, that the U.S. was developing the coronavirus as a bioweapon.

Zhao said China has made major contributions toward virus tracing, sharing the most data and research results.

WHO’s expert group said in the report released Thursday, “key pieces of data” to explain how the pandemic began were still missing. The group would “remain open to any and all scientific evidence that becomes available in the future to allow for comprehensive testing of all reasonable hypotheses.”

The WHO’s stance is a sharp reversal of the U.N. health agency’s initial assessment of the pandemic’s origins. It comes after many critics accused WHO of being too quick to dismiss or underplay a lab-leak theory that put Chinese officials on the defensive.

Identifying a disease’s source in animals typically takes years. It took more than a decade for scientists to pinpoint the species of bats that were the natural reservoir for SARS, a relative of COVID-19.

WHO’s expert group also noted that since lab accidents in the past have triggered some outbreaks, the highly politicized theory could not be discounted.
-AP