Executive Director of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme Michael J. Ryan said on Friday that the agency was sure that the coronavirus is natural in origin.
"We have listened again and again to numerous scientists who looked at the sequences and looked at this virus and we are assured that this virus is natural in origin. And what is important is that we establish what the natural host for this virus is. And the primary purpose of doing that is to ensure that we understand the virus more, we understand the animal, human interface and we understand how the animal-human species barrier was breached", Ryan said.
Ryan's remark came during a media briefing where he was asked if the WHO believed that a laboratory in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology was the origin of the coronavirus and what actions the organisation had taken to establish an actual origin of the infection.
In the meantime, US President Donald Trump said in a press conference that Washington could impose new tariffs on Beijing as a retaliatory measure over the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. The measure reportedly includes cancelling US debt obligations to China.
China has so far consistently denied the accusations, stressing the transparency and responsibility of its policies throughout the outbreak.
On 11 March, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. To date, more than 3.2 million coronavirus cases and over 230,000 related deaths have been recorded globally, according to statistics collected by Johns Hopkins University.
