WHO- Coronavirus ‘likely’ to have come from animals not a lab

Evidence suggests the coronavirus originated in bats in China in late 2019 and was not manipulated or made in a laboratory, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday.

The comment from the United Nation’s health agency comes after President Donald Trump said last week that the U.S. was trying to determine whether the virus originated from a lab in Wuhan, central China.

“All available evidence suggests the virus has an animal origin and is not a manipulated or constructed virus in a lab or somewhere else,” WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib told a news briefing in Geneva, Reuters reported Tuesday.

“It is probable, likely that the virus is of animal origin,” she said, adding that there had “certainly” been an intermediate animal host before the virus had been transmitted to humans.