According to a June 14 report by the online translation and media monitoring organization MEMRI.org, a number of Syrian media outlets have been recently referring to the Russian press in order to accuse the United States of being behind the monkeypox outbreak in several areas in the world. For example, one leading columnist in the Syrian Al-Thawra daily newspaper has asserted that the United States “developed viruses in biological laboratories to wipe out people around the world.” The MEMRI report goes on to refer to additional comments by the former director of the Syrian news agency and columnist in the state-run Al-Thawra, Abdul Rahim Ahmad, who said that the United States is attacking people around the world through terrorist organizations that it established like AL-Qa'idah and ISIL, and by causing poverty and hunger as well as deadly diseases that the US is spreading around the world, the last of which is monkeypox, he said.
Another columnist at Al-Thawra, Rim Salah, also accused the United States of spreading deadly epidemics all over the world. She wrote: “From Ebola to Anthrax, as well as swine flu, bird flu, and the monkeypox virus, deadly diseases and epidemics are spreading. We can be sure that the origin is one. It has become clear that the source consists of the American biological laboratories operating in more than 26 countries around the world under the direct funding and supervision of the Pentagon."
As MEMRI notes, all of these claims are based on statements by Russian officials, including by the Commander of the Radiological, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces of the Russian Armed Forces, Igor Kirillov, who is quoted by another Arabic media outlet as saying that, “the monkeypox virus came from Nigeria where at least four American biological laboratories are operating.” Kirillov added: “According to a WHO report, the outbreak of the monkeypox West African strain started in Nigeria, which is yet another country where the United States has established a biological infrastructure. According to the available information, there are no less than four Washington-controlled biological laboratories in Nigeria.” Some claims went as far as to indicate that the United States is using migrant birds to spread epidemics during their annual migration.
Fact Check Assessment: False
The claim by both of the Syrian newspaper columnists - that the monkeypox virus originated in a US lab, or any other lab for that matter - is false. As the WHO explains, monkeypox is caused by the monkeypox virus, and is a “zoonotic viral disease, which means that it can be transmitted from animals to humans and can also be transmitted between humans.” Monkeypox is present in Central and West Africa, where tropical rainforests are located that are usually home to animals, which might carry this virus. Individuals suffering from monkeypox are sometimes detected in other countries beyond Central and West Africa after traveling from these regions where the monkeypox virus is endemic.
Indeed, most importantly for our fact checking purposes, the disease is not new and did not emerge with the launching of the war in Ukraine or Syria but is rather a quite old, naturally occurring disease, again according to the WHO. In 1970, cases of monkeypox in humans were reported in the following eleven African countries: Benin, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria, Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, and South Sudan.
A number of fact checkers have also exposed the false claim that monkeypox was created as an American biological weapon. For instance, the BBC published a fact-checking report, which indicated that there is no proof that the latest monkeypox outbreak was due to lab-made viruses as per the claims of the Russian government. The humanglemedia website also published a report quoting geneticist Fatima Tokhmafsha as saying that “genetic sequences so far obtained from the virus can be traced to the common West African strain, which tells us this is not something manufactured.”
