Why has the United States put a ban on funding for a Chinese lab over the dispute over the pandemic’s origin?

The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has brought novel sanctions on a Chinese laboratory over a debate surrounding the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. The move has a significant symbolic impact.

The HHS memo that the House of Representatives subcommittee made public seeks to investigate the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic and initiates the debarment of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) from taking part in the US Federal Government procurement and non-procurement programs. Therefore, as per the nine-page memo, this bars the WIV from getting U.S. government funding at present and maybe in the future as well. As per the memo, this very suspension is important in order to mitigate any potential public health risk.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology has conducted studies to understand the bat coronaviruses. However, the same institute has faced suspicion in the theory that the SARS-CoV-2 got leaked from a Chinese lab thereby stirring a pandemic. Despite the suspicion, no robust evidence proves against the Institute. Another hypothesis states that there was a leap of the virus from bats to humans, possibly via an “intermediate host: species that the vendors sold at the Huanan Seaford Wholesale Market by Wuhan. These contradictory theories have started out debates among the Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Debates have arisen even between the U.S. intelligence community divisions that have started the investigation of COVID-19’s potential origin.

The lab-leak proponents have applauded the novel memo. A few of these proponents have stated that the EcoHealth Alliance, Wuhan Institute of Virology’s U.S. collaborator, ought to be disbarred too. However, some feel that the HHS is surrendering political push and thus undermining ties with the Chinese scientists, who can actually aid in safeguarding the country from the pandemics in the future. Richard Roberts, the Nobel laureate who headed a letter campaign against the termination of an EcoHealth grant by the National Institute of Health said that this is yet another example of how the Republicans are putting pressure on a public institution in order to create trouble.

Why did the HHS issue the memo after all?

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the HHS issued EcoHealth’s audit report. EcoHealth is a New York City-based nonprofit that carries out fieldwork to delve into the potentially risky pathogens to mankind. The4 report put EcoHealth at fault for not monitoring a sub-award effectively to WIV from an NIH grant received by EcoHealth in the year 2014. The OIG report suggested that the NIH should refer the matter to the suspension and debarment officials of HHS.

ALSO READ: The government issues a warning opposing Akira. What is the Akira ransomware? Understand it today