It has been revealed that COVID-19 could have leaked from a United State (US) lab according to The Lancet commission on lesson for the future from the pandemic.
The report which was published on Wednesday noted that the US is facing a backlash after a major Covid-19 Commission report suggested the disease may have leaked from a laboratory in the US.
The paper stated that it remains “feasible” that Sars-Cov-2 emerged from either a natural spillover or a laboratory incident, and called for the introduction of more safeguards to reduce the risk of either eventuality.
The paper criticised the World Health Organization for acting too slowly in the early days of the pandemic, suggesting it “repeatedly erred on the side of reserve rather than boldness”, for instance around the delay in calling a public health emergency, and a “hesitancy” to confirm Covid could spread through airborne transmission.
But the report, a result of two years of work, also suggested American researchers could be culpable. As well as mentioning facilities in Wuhan, it noted that “independent researchers have not yet investigated” US labs, and said the National Institutes of Health has “resisted disclosing details” of its work.
The report comes as controversy swirls the commission chair, the economist Prof Jeffrey Sachs.
At a conference in Madrid earlier this year, he said he was “pretty convinced” that Sars-Cov-2 “came out of a US lab of biotechnology, not out of nature” – a claim that has since been widely promoted by Chinese diplomats.
Also, In August, Prof Sachs appeared on a podcast hosted by Robert F Kennedy Jr, one of the world’s most prominent anti-vaccine commentators to discuss his beliefs, just days after Instagram and Facebook suspended an account led by Mr Kennedy for repeatedly sharing what the platforms said was Covid misinformation, especially around vaccines.
The UN health agency also “fell victim to the increasing tensions between the United States and China”, the commissioners warned, adding that better international collaboration will be key to prevent epidemics becoming pandemics in future.
