GENEVA (REUTERS) – The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday (April 21) that all available evidence suggests that the novel coronavirus originated in bats in China late last year and it was not manipulated or constructed in a laboratory.

US President Donald Trump said last week that his government was trying to determine whether the virus emanated from a lab in Wuhan in central China.

“All available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not manipulated or constructed in a lab or somewhere else,” WHO spokesman Fadela Chaib told a Geneva news briefing. “It is probable, likely that the virus is of animal origin.”

It was not clear how the virus had jumped the species barrier to humans but there had “certainly” been an intermediate animal host, she added.

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