SHANGHAI: An outbreak of disinformation in
and elsewhere has hurt global
efforts
to combat the new
coronavirus, said a specialist infectious disease
lab located at the epicentre of the epidemic -- and at the heart of a number of
conspiracy
theories.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the state-backed
Wuhan Institute of Virology said "internet rumours" had "received close attention from all walks of life" and "caused great harm
to our research staff on the front line of scientific research".
It said its staff had been working around the clock since the end of 2019
to trace the source of the coronavirus and improve detection rates, but the conspiracies had "seriously interfered" with their
efforts.
The institute has been accused of "artificially synthesising" the coronavirus in one of its laboratories, it said. It also referred
to other claims circulating online that the "patient zero" in the current outbreak was a graduate student from the institute, and that one of its researchers had also died after the
virus "leaked".
Conspiracy
theories often prosper during epidemics, and have sprung up during recent outbreaks of Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), avian flu and Ebola, said Adam Kamradt-Scott, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Sydney.
"If there is an infectious disease
lab in a city where an outbreak starts, it usually gets the blame."
Many of the rumours circulated domestically and overseas claim the coronavirus was engineered by local scientists and leaked, deliberately or by accident, in Wuhan where the
virus was first detected and is the epicentre of the epidemic.
But another theory, debunked on Wednesday by the well-known rumour-busting website Snopes.com, connected the outbreak
to the arrest last month of Harvard University professor Charles Lieber, who was accused of concealing ties with the Wuhan Institute of Technology.
The
conspiracy
theories have not stayed online. Republican Senator of Arkansas, Tom Cotton, told the Fox News channel this week that "we at least have
to ask the question" whether the coronavirus originated in the Wuhan
lab.
A team of 27 scientists published a statement in the Lancet medical journal on Tuesday condemning the
conspiracy
theories, which "do nothing but create fear, rumours and prejudice that jeopardise our global collaboration in the fight against this
virus."
They said scientists from around the world "overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife". The current consensus is that it emerged from a seafood market in Wuhan that also sold exotic wild animal products.
China usually cracks down heavily on "rumours", and it even arrested Li Wenliang, a doctor who first disclosed the existence of a SARS-like disease in Wuhan at the end of last year and subsequently became its most prominent casualty.
But it has been unable
to silence the vast number of outlandish claims circulating on social media channels.
Shanghai government newspaper Liberation Daily has published a regular round-up of misinformation, including allegations that large numbers of infected patients are coming
to the city for treatment, and a claim the
virus can be cured by strong curry.
Misinformation also prospered during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2002-2003.
As well as
conspiracy
theories about the origins of the
virus, rumours also spread across the country that frogs and newborn babies were suddenly speaking and giving advice about how
to repel the disease, usually through firecrackers and incense sticks.
"Unfortunately it just seems
to be that in addition
to the epidemiological challenge we now also confront a simultaneous misinformation epidemic," said Kamradt-Scott.