The headquarters of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland. (Xinhua/Chen Junxia)
WHO spokesperson said all evidence suggests the new coronavirus has an animal origin, and is not a virus manipulated or constructed in a lab.
GENEVA, April 21 (Xinhua) -- All available evidence suggests that the new coronavirus has an animal origin, and is not a virus manipulated or constructed in a lab or somewhere else, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Fadela Chaib said here on Tuesday.
"It (the novel coronavirus) most probably has its ecological reservoir in bats, but how the virus came from bat to human is still to be seen, to be discovered," the spokesperson told journalists during a virtual press briefing.
Healthcare workers wheel a patient to a triage tent at Maimonides Medical Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York, the United States, April 19, 2020. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)
"There is certainly an intermediary host, another animal, that transmitted the disease from bats to humans," she added.
She underlined that the WHO is combating two pandemics. "We have the pandemic with the virus, but we are also combating 'infodemic'. And when you have a new virus, like this one, it is to be expected that a lot of spurious theories about the origin of the virus be relayed." ■
