US military may have brought virus to Wuhan, tweets China

A medical staff member disinfects equipments at a ward used to be an isolation ward for patients infected by the Covid-19 coronavirus at a hospital in Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus in China's central Hubei province on March 12, 2020. - AFP

BEIJING (Reuters): A spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry suggested on Thursday (March 12) that the US military might have brought the coronavirus to the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has been hardest hit by the outbreak, doubling down on a war of words with Washington.

China has taken great offence at comments by US officials accusing it of being slow to react to the virus, first detected in Wuhan late last year, and of not being sufficiently transparent.