DISINFO: US biolaboratories in Nigeria may be behind the monkeypox epidemic
SUMMARY
The WHO concluded that the agent responsible for monkeypox originated in Nigeria, another state in whose territory the US deployed its biological infrastructure. According to the information available, there are at least four biological laboratories controlled by the US in this nation.
RESPONSE
Disinformation not backed with evidence, aiming to further promote the baseless claim about US biolaboratories around the world as the origin of multiple diseases and threats.
This is a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative strategy. This message is a disingenuous attempt to portray international (and specifically, US) financial support for research on contagious diseases as some dark project on biological weapons.
Although US government agencies working in Nigeria -including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Program- and their implementing partners have supported both national and state laboratories with technical assistance and funding, the United States has no control over these laboratories, as the US general consulate in Nigeria has clarified. In any case, monkeypox is a natural disease known since 1958 and relatively minor outbreaks have taken place all over the world regularly, while there is nothing to indicate that the May 2022 outbreak may have other source than a natural origin.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that the US plans to send infected migratory birds to infect Russia, that Covid-19 is one of the pathogens prepared in US biolabs for biological warfare, that US biolabs are responsible for virus outbreaks in Ukraine since 2008, or that the images of dead bodies in Bucha may be a diversion of attention from US biolabs in Ukraine.