China Demands Nobel Prize For Wuhan Lab Research, Netizens Call It 'Height Of Shamelessness'

The Chinese minister’s statement comes amid the lab being nominated for the country's top science award for its role in identifying the genome of the virus.

FILE PIC/AFP

New Delhi: Even as the Chinese Wuhan Lab remained at the centre of controversy ever since the outbreak of Covid-19, the Chinese ministry has now gone ahead to demand that its laboratory be awarded the prestigious Nobel prize for contribution to the research of the coronavirus.

The China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry’s spokesperson Zhau Lijian insisted that China’s Wuhan Lab deserve a Nobel Prize in Medicine for studying the coronavirus.

The minister’s statement comes amid the lab being nominated for China’s top science award. The Chinese Academy of Sciences selected the Wuhan Institute of Virology for its ‘Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize’ in 2021 for its role in identifying the genome of the virus.

There have been several hypothesis regarding the Wuhan lab as the potential source of the SARS-CoV-2.  Apart from global media, a few of China’s own virologists also claimed that China was experimenting with bats in order to form bioweapon which accidentally might have escaped. They have repeatedly said the coronavirus was not man-made or leaked from a lab.  However, there is no concrete evidence yet supporting the claims.

Among the Chinese virologist, Dr. Li-Meng Yan was the first persons to claim that the coronavirus was leaked from the Wuhan lab. On responding to the demand for Nobel Prixe Yan to News 18, she said more and more evidence coming out, people are realising that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in Wuhan, and the labs involved in the gain-of-function modification of the virus.

While reacting to these claims, Zhau Lijian in an press conference had said, “The genome sequence of Covid-19 was first identified by Chinese scientists, but that does not mean Wuhan is the source of the coronavirus, nor can it be inferred that the coronavirus was made by Chinese scientists,"

If those that first publish high-quality viral genomes were to be accused of making the virus, then professor Luc Montagnier, who first discovered the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) would be considered the culprit of AIDS rather than awarded the Nobel Prize, and Mr. Louis Pasteur, who discovered microbes, would be held accountable for the disease-causing bacteria all around the globe. By analogy, the team in Wuhan should be awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for their research on Covid-19 instead," Lijian added.

Meanwhile, social media users have sharply reacted to such a demand with netizens criticising the ministry for such a claim saying the Chinese Communist Party has outdone itself this time. Users also took a dig at the Chinese authorities on social media platform Twitter, saying "If Wuhan Lab in China deserves Nobel Prize for Medicine according to China; then ISIS deserves the Nobel peace prize too."