World-leading experts on the novel coronavirus have signed a statement of support for their Chinese colleagues, who are being attacked on social media and even threatened with violence as false rumours circulate about its origins.
There is a real risk that the open and transparent relationship between the Chinese scientists and their western counterparts will come to an abrupt end, impeding the sharing of data and the hunt for treatments and vaccines against Covid-19, warned Dr Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance in the United States, whose research into emerging diseases led to the identification of the bat origin of Sars, among others.
Daszak is one of 27 prominent public health scientists from nine countries who have signed the
statement published by the Lancet medical journal. They include Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust in the UK, Jim Hughes, former director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases in the USA, Rita Colwell, former head of the US National Science Foundation and other leaders in infectious disease research and public health.