Jakarta – A US Congressional committee has backed the theory that a laboratory leak caused the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a report released on Monday, the Republican-controlled House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis concluded that the coronavirus likely emerged due to a laboratory accident or related research.
The 520-page report, which took two years to prepare, reviewed the federal and state responses to the pandemic, as well as the origins of the virus and vaccination efforts.
“This work will help the United States, and the world, predict the next pandemic, prepare for the next pandemic, protect ourselves from the next pandemic, and hopefully prevent the next pandemic,” said Brad Wenstrup, the Republican panel chairman, in his letter to Congress, quoted by Aljazeera.
Among the key conclusions of the report is that the U.S. National Institutes of Health funded controversial “gain-of-function” research, which enhances viruses to find ways to fight them, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China before the outbreak occurred.
The first cases of COVID-19 were identified in Wuhan, located in Hubei province, central China, in December 2019. The city is believed to be the original site of the virus’s emergence.
The virus quickly spread worldwide, killing more than 7 million people and causing havoc in the global economy as many countries closed their borders and ordered regional lockdowns.
While US federal agencies, the World Health Organization, and scientists around the world have worked to determine the origins of COVID-19, no consensus has emerged.
Many researchers believe the virus originated from zoonosis, spreading from animals to humans, and possibly transmitted at a wet market in Wuhan.
However, the US Department of Energy assessed in an intelligence report last year that the virus most likely leaked from a laboratory.
The department’s findings align with those of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which said in 2021 that the virus likely spread after a laboratory accident.
The House committee is confident in the lab-leak theory after meeting 25 times over the past two years, conducting more than 30 transcribed interviews, and reviewing over one million pages of documents.
