Washington DC, July 30 -- The White House has reignited the debate over the origins of COVID-19, accusing former US Chief Medical Adviser Dr Anthony Fauci of pushing a "preferred narrative" that the virus originated naturally.

The White House made the allegations in a report titled 'Lab Leak (The True Origins of Covid-19)', which also questioned the role of US health officials, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and EcoHealth Alliance in research linked to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.

According to the report, the publication 'The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2', which was repeatedly used by public health officials and the media to discredit the lab-leak theory, was "prompted by Dr. Fauci to push the preferred narrative ...