COVID-19 origin: Need to continue with a science-based response approach, says Chinese President Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping said that China will spare no effort to support international cooperation against COVID-19.

File Photo (IANS)

New Delhi: Amid ongoing researches on the origins of the COVID-19, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday (July 6, 2021) said that there is a need to continue with a science-based response approach. 

While addressing the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) and 'World Political Parties Summit' via video conference, Xi Jinping also called on political parties worldwide to oppose politicising the coronavirus pandemic or attaching a geographical label to the deadly virus. 

"In the face of the ongoing COVID-19, we need to continue with a science-based response approach and advocate solidarity and cooperation so as to close the 'immunisation gap'," Xi said.

He added that China will spare no effort to support international cooperation against COVID-19.

This is to be noted that the origins of the COVID-19 remain a highly debated topic across the world, with some scientists and politicians maintaining that the possibility of a lab leak of the deadly virus exists.

China's Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is near the outbreak's known epicentre of Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, where the virus had first reportedly emerged in late 2019 and became a pandemic. China, however, has maintained that there is no connection between the pandemic origins and the Wuhan lab and has dismissed the issue of a possible leak as an 'absurd story'. It asserts that the COVID-19 broke out in different places in the world and China only reported the virus first.

Earlier in May 2021, a joint team of experts of China and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in their report had said that the lab leak theory is 'extremely unlikely' but WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had said that 'it requires further probe'.

"As far as the WHO is concerned, all hypotheses remain on the table," Ghebreyesus had said.

(With inputs from PTI)