BEIJING - Despite a US campaign to smear China on the origin of COVID-19, more scientists and scholars are speaking out against politicizing the issue.

In a new opinion piece titled "A virus, theories of origin, and a place for science," Thomas Abraham, adjunct associate professor at the Journalism and Media Studies Centre of Hongkong University, warned of the negative impact of politicizing the COVID-19 origin on scientific researches.

"Polarisation on political lines will only create more hurdles in finding clear answers to the source of SARS-CoV-2," he wrote in the article published by The Hindu daily.