COMMENTARY: COVID-19 And The Chinese Joke!

One year after the first cases of COVID-19 was detected in Wuan in China, some scientists in the powerful Asian country has claimed that in fact, the deadly virus either originated from Bangladesh or India. Is it a year-end joke?

According to Britain’s popular The Sun newspaper scientists at the Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences suggests the virus existed on the Indian subcontinent before the Wuhan outbreak in December last year.

The paper published by the institute also claims that the “least mutated strain was found in eight countries: Australia, Bangladesh, Greece, the US, Russia, Italy and the Czech Republic.”

It named Bangladesh and India where the COVID-19 had the first outbreak as both have the greatest genetic diversity.

“The researchers propose that India’s young population, extreme weather and drought created the necessary conditions for the virus to jump to humans.”

This news has come as a big shock in both the South Asian countries and experts questioned one year after Wuan most detected as the birthplace of the deadly bug that has claimed //// lives so far worldwide.

Also, more importantly, that China is almost back to its normal life with many suspecting it also had an antidote or a vaccine to manage the virus so quickly even if it is a regimented country.

The whistle-blower doctor in Wuan has also died after getting infected with the bug, as per Chinese media.

The jump from animal to humans was attributed from a snake, which is widely consumed in China, along with other animals and ended with the theory that the culprit is a bat.

Nowhere in Bangladesh snakes or bats are consumed in Bangladesh as a Muslim-majority country where the people of the faith have to follow the strict religious ban on what they consume which includes pigs or pork.

Indian scientists have rejected the Chinese claim and some Bangladeshi scientists also questioned the claims made by the Institute. They are now waiting to see whether prestigious The Lancet magazine publishes it or not.

So far Bangladesh has the least number of COVID-19 cases and deaths compared to India or Pakistan.

Thus if Bangladesh is a suspect, then it is next to impossible to be the birthplace of COVID-19 and we await our scientists to give a reply to the study, which some media claimed is an attempt to “shift the blame” on a small country like Bangladesh and its arch-rival India.

Beijing must take the claim into serious consideration as over the past years it has become a major development partner of Bangladesh and the issue has been dubbed as a “joke” by many people of this country who feel that the World Health Organisation should have put China under lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus’ deadly strain.

We await expert opinion from the Lancet our scientists.

newsnextbd/nq/