The global health body also said the virus was not manipulated or constructed in a laboratory, contrary to speculations in some quarters.
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US President, Donald Trump, had said last week that his government was trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a laboratory 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.
“It is probable, likely that the virus is of animal origin,’’ WHO spokeswoman, Fadela Chaib, told a Geneva news briefing. ‘’It is not clear how the virus jumped the species barrier to humans but there had ‘certainly’ been an intermediate animal host,’’ she added.