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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian expressed his opposition to some media calling the COVID-19 “Chinese virus” at regular press conference on Wednesday, adding it was an extremely irresponsible behavior.

With the spread of COVID-19 around the world, opinions about the source of the virus and Patient Zero are divided. Zhao emphasized two points at the press conference.

Firstly, he said the source tracing work of the virus is still under way, and the WHO has repeatedly stated that the novel coronavirus is a global phenomenon, whose source is still uncertain.

In this time, attention should be paid to how to contain the virus, and to avoid regionally discriminatory remarks. The reason why WHO named the novel coronavirus "COVID-19" is that this name is not related to any region or country, he said.

Zhong Nanshan, the renowned Chinese respiratory specialist, also said that the outbreak of the epidemic first happened in China, but the virus did not necessarily originate from China.

Second, we should jointly reject "information virus" and "political virus". The behavior of some media calling the novel coronavirus “Chinese virus” groundlessly and attempting to make China the scapegoat for the epidemic has fully manifested their ulterior motives, said Zhao.

He noted that the novel coronavirus is a challenge faced by all countries, and the international community should work together to fight it, and make concerted efforts to counter rumors and prejudice.

Facing the epidemic, what we need are science, rationality, and cooperation, science to overcome ignorance, and cooperation to reject prejudice，he added.

(Compiled by Zhang Yuanzheng)