Coronavirus | Need for comprehensive and expert-led mechanism to expeditiously investigate origin of COVID-19: India

There were growing demands by a number of countries to investigate how the virus originated in Wuhan city in December 2019.

India on Thursday demanded a comprehensive and expert-led mechanism to expeditiously investigate the origin of coronavirus, days after the World Health Organization (WHO) came out with a report on it that failed to meet expectations of the U.S., the U.K. and several other countries, which voiced concerns over the findings. In its report, the WHO said it was unlikely that coronavirus leaked from a lab in the China's Wuhan city and that most likely it arose in bats and then spread to humans, even as the U.S. and many other countries raised the issue of Chinese authorities not providing full access to the WHO team probing the origin of the virus. "We share the need for a comprehensive and expert-led mechanism that would expeditiously investigate the origin of COVID-19 in cooperation with all stakeholders," MEA Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, replying to media queries on the issue.