MELAKU MULUALEM K.
(melakumulu@yahoo.com)
In the 21st Century the people of the whole world is threatened by the COVID-19 virus. The virus has reached in almost all countries of the world. Millions of people have become victims of the deadly virus which led to a global health crises. Pandemics can affect countries with various degrees and impacts. Some countries can be affected more seriously than the others. The virus has negative social and economic effects in the world.
The virus has impediments on individuals by affecting day to day life. It has also become a great blow against the world economy. All sections of the society be it leader of a government or an ordinary person, rich or poor, white or black, young or old, male or female can be affected by the virus. The world has also noticed the deaths of people from all sections of the society.
Deadly virus usually originates in some place and spread to other parts of the world through time and become pandemic. Viruses can also be transmitted from animals to human beings. There are speculations that bats and pangolins can be the source of the COVID-19.
Identifying the origin of any deadly virus helps to understand its nature and control before it kills many people in the world. Such identification helps policy-makers, scientists and ordinary peoples to have more information and to tackle the problem effectively. The virus crisis urges the need to address it before reaching to the point of catastrophic impacts.
Moving rapidly across borders, the virus is a highly transmittable and pathogenic virus that endangers the survival of many people in the world. After the beginning of the pandemic, the WHO has declared about its outbreak and requested a global health emergency. Soon many experts and scientists around the world have started to identify the origins of the virus. Different countries are pointing their fingers to one another. One of the accusations promoted by the USA is “lab leak” theory. This is to target China’s laboratory as a source of the virus.
But origins- tracing study is not malicious false accusations or presumption of guilt for political purposes. Origins-tracing in essence is a complex issue of science that needs a lot of data, analysis, laboratory studies, observations and scientific conclusions, should not jump to conclusion without scientific evidences. We should appreciate China for undertaking a scientific, professional and responsible attitude in tracing the origins of the virus. From January 14 to February 10 2021 seventeen international experts formed a joint expert team with Chinese experts, and conducted a 28-day joint research on the origins of the virus. In this mission, Chinese government has given administrative, technical and logistic support to facilitate the study. After finishing the study, the expert team presented its independent reports.
This joint WHO-China study on the origins of the virus says the “virus is ‘most likely’ to be introduced through an intermediary host species, ‘likely’ to be introduced through direct transmission or cold-chain food, and ‘extremely unlikely’ to be introduced through a ‘laboratory incident’. It also clearly says that a global perspective is needed to carry out future origins-tracing work in multiple countries and regions instead of just one area. This study gave a clue about the virus. The report should be considered as one of the findings for any other future studies on the origin of the virus.
Politicizing the pandemics cannot help to get out of the problem. The origin-tracing study should be the responsibilities of the international communities than political manipulations. The debate about the source of the virus has become contentious and still going on in the world. It is being supported more of by narratives than scientific evidences. The origins of the virus can be traced by natural science than political science, which can be cooked up and mislead the world. The selection of scientists should also focus on their expertise, international reputation and practical experiences.
The noble idea that underlines about shared future of mankind is fundamental to work together. Cooperation and collaboration by the international communities are crucial to counter the impact of the deadly virus. The world should appreciate the willingness of China for scientific studies in the country. It has also manufactured vaccine to control the spread of the virus.
Intergovernmental organizations should respect the decision and directions made by its member states. Thus the World Health Organization (WHO) should implement decisions made by its Assembly than by unilateral actions of its Secretariat. This will help to come up with unbiased results on the origin of the virus. The WHO should also facilitate the study by scientists of the world.
Great powers have moral responsibilities to support developing countries in the fight against the virus. Similar to many countries, China is a victim of this deadly virus. Wuhan was the first city to report virus cases and the first to bring the virus under control. The role of China in preventing the people of the world is crucially important. While many developed countries are excessively hoarding the vaccine, China is providing the vaccines to more than one hundred countries in the world. Many African countries, including Ethiopia, have benefited from the generous support of China. China has delivered a large number of needed medical supplies to Ethiopia among other forms of tangible support, and Ethiopia was the destination for the very first Chinese medical expert team to Africa. China is also the first country to make continued vaccine donations to Ethiopia, and the number of doses China donated has reached 1 million. This reminds the old saying “a friend in need is a friend indeed”.
The international communities should have a say in the way how to study the origin of the virus. As long as the study is inclusive, there is no doubt that the whole world will accept the results. Otherwise politicized declaration on its origin will be rejected. Pandemics is not the concern of only one specific nation, rather it is the concern of the whole world.
Recently, the international communities have conveyed a message to the secretariat of the WHO to refrain from political virus and focus on countering the virus. This message requests the WHO to give chance to scientists of the world to make the research output reliable, credible and acceptable. They have also underlined that there is a need to have more collaborative investigations to determine the origin of the pandemic.
Through their joint statements, the international communities have denounced politicization of the virus. This is neither to support China nor its allies, rather to support unbiased and nonpolitical research outputs by the scientists of the world. Collaboration and coordination of efforts of scientists of the world is a stepping stone to control the virus and other possible global health problems.
Various sources disclosed that the US intelligence community has compiled a so-called report on the origins of COVID-19. This is to politicize the virus than to rely on scientific and credible research and studies.
The USA is accusing China for not being cooperative to the study of the virus origin. When we see the former study through the collaboration of China and the WHO, the accusation has no ground to be justified. It was China that disclosed the beginning of the virus before spreading to other countries as a pandemic. This is an example of executing the rules and responsibilities of the WHO. The world should also get the experiences of China in managing and controlling the spread of the virus in the country.
Sources also show that “Russia stands against politicizing origin-tracing, and supports a coordinated, transparent and multilateral approach”. Such voices should be listened so as to trace the origin of the virus. Involvements of scientists from different countries will help to solve the problem effectively and efficiently. The international communities are not against the study about tracing the origin of the virus again and again. But duplication of efforts should be avoided. Thus the findings of the former studies can be used as a base for any other future studies. To deviate from this basic principle means to gamble on the lives and wellbeing of the peoples of the world.
The writer is a researcher at the Institute of Strategic Affairs (ISA)
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
The Ethiopian Herald September 4/2021
