A team of World Health Organisation (WHO) experts, which is investigating the origin of the novel coronavirus, on Tuesday said that no indication of the virus being present in China’s Wuhan before December 2019 has been found, reported AFP.

“There is no indication of the transmission of the Sars-Cov-2 in the Chinese population in the period before December 2019,” said Liang Wannian, head of the China team, at a press briefing.

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The joint WHO and China experts also noted that they had not yet found the animal host responsible for transmitting the virus to humans as well.

Adding that the transmission of virus from animals to humans was likely the case, Liang Wannian, head of the China team told media that so far “the reservoir hosts remain to be identified.”

According to Reuters, WHO’s Ben Embarek also said that team, however, found evidence of wider circulation outside the Wuhan Huanan market in December 2019.

The WHO findings so far concluded that there is insufficient evidence to determine that COVID-19 was being spread in China’s central Wuhan before December 2019.

Experts from the World Health Organisation began their closely-watched coronavirus origins probe in late January with a Wuhan hospital, presumed to be “ground zero” of the pandemic.