Slandering China in terms of COVID-19's origins is nothing but a tool for political struggle in the United States, Sputnik news agency recently quoted a professor as saying.

There are two major factors why the fuss over COVID-19's origins is still gaining steam in Washington, said Heinz Dieterich, a German political observer and director of the Center for Transition Sciences at the Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City.

"The U.S. governance system is losing the global battle for soft power-hegemony against China," and both the Republicans and Democrats are bracing for a major struggle in Congress for the 2022 midterms, he said.

The professor believes that in both cases, the theory that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab and China's "mishandling of the pandemic" is just a political tool.