KATHMANDU: The coronavirus may have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan City of China, The Daily Mail cited one of the most senior health officials in the US as saying.

Supporting the claim, the House Republicans published their own report claiming that there is ‘circumstantial evidence’ that the virus originated in a Wuhan facility.

The US government has been in difficulty to downplay speculation that the virus was the result of an accident in China – although they are calling on Beijing to be more transparent about their role.

They insist that it is far more likely that COVID-19 originated with animals, and spread naturally to humans, the report in The Daily Mail said.

Similarly, critics of the Biden administration have accused the government of not telling the whole truth, and not pushing hard enough, in a bid to avoid angering China.

Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) appeared before Congress on Wednesday for a hearing on their budget for the next fiscal year, starting on October 1.

She was asked by Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, a Republican, how she believed the pandemic started. ‘I don’t believe I’ve seen enough data, individual data for me to be able to comment on that,’ Walensky said.

Asked what the possibilities are, Walensky said, ‘Certainly the possibilities of, that most coronaviruses that we know of are of origin from, that have infected the population — SARS CoV-1, MERS — generally come from an animal origin.’

Kennedy responded: ‘Are there any other possibilities?’

‘Certainly a lab-based origin is one possibility,’ Walensky said.

She was also asked whether the United States was funding any ‘gain of function’ research – a risky and controversial technique, which plays around with a virus’ features such as transmissibility and lethality.

Walensky replied: ‘Not that I know of.’

She spoke as House Republicans on the Intelligence Committee published their own report into the virus.

They concluded that there is ‘significant circumstantial evidence’ that the COVID-19 outbreak stemmed from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

‘International efforts to discover the true source of the virus, however, have been stymied by a lack of cooperation from the People’s Republic of China,’ Republicans wrote.

‘Nevertheless, significant circumstantial evidence raises serious concerns that the COVID-19 outbreak may have been a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.’

In the report, obtained by Fox News, they urged the federal government to put ‘more pressure on China’ to allow for a ‘full, credible investigation’ into the source of the global pandemic.

Devin Nunes, a Republican representing California and the ranking member of the committee, said it was ‘crucial for health experts and the U.S. government to understand how the COVID-19 virus originated’ to prevent ‘or quickly mitigate future pandemics.’

Republicans said that China had a ‘history of research lab leaks resulting in infections.’

(With inputs from The Daily Mail)