Kim Hjelmgaard | USA TODAY

USA TODAY

The available evidence indicates coronavirus originated in animals in China late last year and was not manipulated or produced in a laboratory as has been alleged, the World Health Organization said Tuesday in a news briefing in Geneva.

"It is probable, likely, that the virus is of animal origin," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said.

The global health body's remarks follow confirmation from President Donald Trump last week that his administration is investigating whether coronavirus originated in a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the disease emerged.

Speculation about how coronavirus may have escaped the Wuhan Institute of Virology has circulated among right-wing bloggers and conservative media pundits.

One suggestion that the virus could be man-made and linked to a Chinese biowarfare program has been widely dismissed by scientists. Under a second scenario, the virus was naturally occurring – from a bat, say – but accidentally escaped the research facility because of poor safety protocols.

Both notions are based on circumstantial evidence such as the Wuhan Institute of Virology's history of studying coronaviruses in bats, the lab's proximity to where some of the infections were first diagnosed and China's lax safety record in its labs.

Salvatore Di Nolfi, AP

Chaib said there remain questions over how precisely coronavirus jumped the species barrier to humans, but an intermediate animal host is the most likely explanation. She said the coronavirus, which causes the disease COVID-19, "most probably has its ecological reservoir in bats."

The Trump administration accused the WHO of a catalog of errors over its response to the pandemic, including failing to adequately prepare for the outbreak, raising the alarm too slowly and naively accepting flawed information from China.

The WHO disputed all the allegations. Most public health experts don't agree with the Trump administration's specific criticisms of the WHO, although they acknowledge that the organization needs reform and lacks transparency. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that American officials working with the WHO sent back information to the White House about the spread of the virus in the crucial early days of January.

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