TEHRAN – In a joint research report titled "U.S. Responsible for Global Spread of COVID-19", Washington is blamed for the global spread of COVID-19.

The research is jointly conducted by the Intelligence & Alliance Think Tank and the Taihe Institute.

The research study, published on Saturday on the Xinhua website, blames the United States as “most responsible for the fast global spread of the virus.”

It says Washington’s “political manipulation of the disease has made the global anti-pandemic efforts particularly difficult and challenging.”

It cites Washington’s refusal to lift sanctions on Iran during the pandemic era, and even intensifying sanctions, added to the pains of the Iranians.

This an excerpt of the research:

As the pandemic continues to rage across the world, the United States refused to lift sanctions on some countries out of its geo-political considerations. This made it hard for those countries to get access to medical supplies and humanitarian assistance, crippling their abilities in containing the virus.

Take Iran as an example. The U.S. not only turn a deaf ear to the request from the international community to ease sanctions on Iran, but introduced more in the COVID-19 era. This resulted in a burst of infections during the early stages of the pandemic. Iran once ranked No. 9 in global confirmed cases.

Due to U.S.-imposed sanctions, Middle East, Latin-American and African countries with weak public health systems, suffered a huge loss and severe humanitarian crisis. 

U.S. political maneuvering has taken the world further and further away from overcoming the epidemic. From the very beginning of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. politicians have placed geopolitics above science. The United States has given the pandemic a "Cold War" narrative, "Cold War" language and political overtones of "Cold War" attacks, smearing and vilifying China and seriously disrupting international origins-tracing and global anti-pandemic cooperation.