Dr. Anthony Fauci, a renowned U.S. infectious disease expert, has said that there is no scientific evidence for the theory that the coronavirus was made in a Chinese laboratory, or escaped from a laboratory after being brought in from the wild.

Fauci told National Geographic in an interview published on Monday.

"If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," he said.

Based on the scientific evidence, the expert also doesn't entertain an alternate theory – that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped, according to the report.