China has tried to blame Spain for the new strain of coronavirus while suggesting the deadly disease originated in Europe and not Wuhan.
The first cases were detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019 - with many involving workers at a wet market - before the virus rapidly spread around the world, killing more than 525,000 people.
China has been accused of covering up its initial outbreak by silencing doctors who tried to warn the public, muzzling scientists researchers who identified it as a new coronavirus, and failing to alert the rest of the world until it was too late.
The World Heath Organisation (WHO) is set to begin a "scoping mission" to China next week as part of its efforts to trace the origin of Covid-19 as the