The United States President Joe Biden has directed the intelligence community to further investigate the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a White House statement, Biden told the security services to redouble their efforts to conclude the report in three months.
They are to collect and analyse information that could bring the US closer to a definitive conclusion.
Biden said he asked for areas of further inquiry that may be required, including specific questions for China.
“I have also asked that this effort include work by our National Labs and other agencies of our government to augment the Intelligence Community’s efforts.”
The agencies involved in the probe are to keep Congress fully apprised of its work.
Biden said the US would keep working with like-minded partners around the world to press China to participate in a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation.
An intelligence report found several researchers at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalised.
