U.S. 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 virus in a lab or somewhere else,"
WHO spokeswoman 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.
(Reporting by Emma farge and Stephanie Nebehay; Writing by Stephanie
Nebehay; ; editing by John Stonestreet)
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