WHO insists 'all available evidence' suggests coronavirus came from an animal and was not created in a lab

The World Health Organisation has insisted that all available evidence suggests coronavirus was not manufactured in a lab.

Takeshi Kasai, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, said that while it has not been possible to identify the exact source, the disease likely came from animals.

The WHO has previously said that the genetic makeup of the virus is closely related to coronaviruses identified in bats - suggesting the disease originated in that animal before making the leap into humans.

Mr Kasai spoke out after President Trump said the US is looking into whether the virus leaked from a lab near Wuhan which was doing research on coronaviruses including the SARS virus, a close genetic relative of the current coronavirus.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also called for 'more transparency' from China over the origin of the virus.

Meanwhile Veronika Skvortsova, Russia's former health minister, refused to rule out the possibility that the virus came from a lab and called for a 'very through study'.

It is thought that the new coronavirus first made the jump from animals to humans at the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, which is where the earliest cluster of cases was detected.

However, China has so far failed to identify 'patient zero' - the first person to catch the infection.

Without knowing who patient zero is or how they were infected, it will be impossible to know the true source of the virus.

The WHO itself admits that the virus could have been carried to the Huanan Market by an already-infected human, who then spread it to others.

Investigations are currently ongoing into possible cases of coronavirus dating back to mid-November 2019, a month earlier than previously thought.

It came as rare footage emerged showing carrying out research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology - which has found itself at the centre of conspiracy theories around the virus's origin.

Ref: dailymail