The accusation that the COVID-19 virus leaked from a laboratory in the central Chinese city of Wuhan is "more political in nature," Didier Pittet, a leading infectious diseases expert at Geneva University Hospitals, has said.

There is no evidence that the coronavirus leaked from the Wuhan laboratory, Pittet, also inventor of the hand sanitizer, told Russia's Sputnik news agency in an interview published Saturday.

People often forget that the first destructive bacteria escaping from a laboratory happened in the United States, he noted.