Targeting the United States, Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Hua Chunying on Monday defended Wuhan from the claims that it was the source of COVID-19.

Chunying said that allegations on China for any cover-up have been outrageous and the pandemic is likely to have been caused by separate outbreaks in multiple places in the world.

US President Donald Trump has time and again attacked China over the outbreak of coronavirus as he had constantly called it the “China virus.”

Trump and the Republican government have repeatedly blamed Wuhan Labs, saying the virus was leaked in China. However, the Chinese Foreign Ministry on Monday scathingly attacked the United States, saying the country that has seen most cases, might be the source.

These comments from spokesperson Hua Chunying comes when reports suggest a ten-member team of the World Health Organisation (WHO) scientists would visit China this month to probe the origin of the coronavirus, which emerged in Wuhan in December 2019, PTI reported. Beijing is yet to confirm the visit by the WHO team and remained silent about granting permission for it to visit Wuhan city in central China.

“I have no detailed information for you,” Hua told a media briefing here when asked about the visit of the WHO team and whether its schedule included a visit to Wuhan.

“China attaches high importance to cooperation with the WHO. We have been providing support and convenience for WHO’s work,” Hua said.

China has been proactively questioning the widely-held view that the deadly outbreak broke out in a wet market in Wuhan where the live animals are sold. The market remained closed and sealed since early last year.

In May last year, the World Health Assembly (WHA) – the governing body of the 194-member states of the WHO – approved a resolution to set up an independent inquiry to conduct an “impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” of the international response as well as that of WHO.

It also asked the WHO to investigate the “source of the virus and the route of introduction to the human population”.

“We raced against time and were the first country to report cases to the world,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in interviews to the official media over the weekend.

“More and more research suggests that the pandemic was likely to have been caused by separate outbreaks in multiple places in the world,” he said.

“When hit by an unknown coronavirus, China took immediate actions to carry out epidemiological investigation, identify the pathogen and publicise key information including the genome sequencing of the virus. All this sounded alarm bells across the world,” Wang said, adding that China “took the most rigorous control measures to fight the virus”.

She in-turn called for a WHO probe into American military run bio labs while replying to a question on latest allegations by the US National Security Adviser Matthew Pottinger that the COVID-19 has been leaked from the WIV.

“There is a growing body of evidence that the (Wuhan) lab is likely the most credible source of the virus,” Pottinger, a staunch critic of Beijing, allegedly made the claim in a recent virtual meeting with UK officials, according to a British media report.

“Maybe you could ask the senior US officials since they are considering origin tracing such a priority why doesn’t the US invite the WHO experts to investigate the virus in the US considering the links between the Fort Detrick lab (in Maryland) and the major flu last fall and the pandemic,”Hua said.

“Why doesn’t the US invite journalists there,” she asked.