China Vows to Fortify Support to Africa

China Vows to Fortify Support to Africa
Chen Xufeng, Chargé d’Affaires a. i. of Mission of China to the African Union

Addis Ababa, August 03, 2021 (Walta) – Mission of China to the African Union said that China will continue to help African countries overcome the impact of the pandemic, seek a long-term way to achieve sustainable development, and work together to build a closer community of shared future for China and Africa.

According to the information from Mission of China to AU, COVID-19 origin tracing should be studied as a serious and scientific issue without any politicization. Constant and long term origin tracing studies on a global scale in a sound manner should be actively promoted.

Chen Xufeng, Chargé d’Affaires a. i. of Mission of China to the African Union recently has made clarifications on the issue of origin tracing of SARS-CoV-2.

The Chinese government always supports the virus origin tracing, and has been working closely with WHO in an open manner on this issue. Since 2020, the WHO international expert team has twice conducted origin tracing of SARS-CoV-2 studies in China, and has had numerous online and email exchanges with their Chinese counterpart until today. The Chinese government upheld the principles of openness, transparency, science and cooperation, coordinated relevant units together with local governments, and fully met the visit requirements by WHO experts. In March this year, WHO and China jointly released the report on the WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: China part, and made the conclusion that the pathway of the virus is extremely unlikely through laboratory incident. For some of the follow-up and further research recommendations made in the phase 1 joint report, China is actively implementing them at this moment, Chen added.

Head of the mission regarding phase 2 origin tracing study plans of SARS-CoV-2 (“the plan”) further said that the SARS-CoV-2 origin study is a serious scientific issue. Since the release of the above-mentioned report, more and more scientific evidence proved that this is a valuable and authoritative report which can withstand the test of science and history. The report generation process adhered to scientific principles, and the conclusions are also scientific. Therefore, the phase 2 origin tracing study of SARS-CoV-2 should be carried forward on the solid basis of the phase 1 WHO-convened joint study in China. What has already been carried out in the phase 1 study, especially those with clear conclusions, should not be studied again. The plan proposed to “further explore the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 could have resulted from a breach in laboratory protocols in China” as one of the research priorities, which neither respected common sense, nor violated the spirit of science. For this “presumption of guilt”, and a plan that defame China, China will not and cannot accept.

I want to reiterate that only by totally evidence-based and science-driven methodology and practical scientific international cooperation, can we more likely find the virus origin and prevent similar pandemics from happening again, he said.

China firmly opposes the politicization of the origin-tracing of SARS-CoV-2 studies. Up to now, nearly 60 countries, including a vast number of African countries, have written to WHO, agreeing with the results of the phase 1 study and opposing the plot of politicization. Politicians and scientists from many African countries have also blamed certain countries for their actions of politicizing the origin-tracing of SARS-CoV-2 studies, which fully proves that the majority of countries uphold justice and objectivity.

Chen added that the viewpoint that Covid-19 originated from nature has been widely recognized by the international scientific community. Since this year, certain countries constantly speculated on such rumors as “virus escaped from laboratory” and made uproars to conduct so-called “independent” origin tracing investigation, but at the same time they keep pressuring on WHO and international expert team, try to ignore the hard work of the experts and groundlessly deny the conclusions made in the joint report by phase 1 study, to turn over the consensus reached in the joint research in Wuhan by using a series of tricks including “expert” open letter, joint statement with several national governments etc, in order to shift responsibility for their botched pandemic response and achieve the political purpose of discrediting and suppressing other countries.

At present, the COVID-19 pandemic has not yet been effectively controlled around the world, and its variants have occurred in many countries. The pandemic situation in some African countries has rebounded seriously, and the vaccination in some areas is still not optimistic. China has spared no effort to constantly provide substantial support to WHO and other countries to combat the pandemic. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, China and Africa have consolidated friendship and mutual trust through offering mutual support and jointly overcoming difficulties. China has provided several batches of emergency anti-pandemic materials and tens of millions of vaccines doses to African countries, fulfilling its commitment to making its Covid-19 vaccines “global public goods”. China have overcome the impact of the pandemic and resumed the construction of railway ports, power stations and other projects undertaken by the Chinese side, which has strongly promoted the economic recovery and social development in Africa, it was noted.

China and Africa have also jointly launched the Initiative on Partnership for Africa’s Development, calling on the international community to enhance support to Africa in areas such as anti-pandemic fight, post-epidemic reconstruction, trade and investment, debt relief etc., which has set a good example for global solidarity against the pandemic.

China calls for WHO to enhance the solidarity among member states instead of stoking conflict, and calls WHO for pooling the efforts of all parties including scientists to make controlling the pandemic as the top priority, Walta learnt.