China's Foreign Ministry Thursday slammed a media report that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was lab-created and is a chemical or biological weapon as appalling.

Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang made the remark on Thursday, saying that such claims at this time when the Chinese people were working hard to combat the epidemic were "either full of ignorance or bear hostile intentions".

"We're not only taking responsibility for ourselves, but also doing our duty to maintain global public health security," he said.

"What we need is science, rationality (and) cooperation, to defeat ignorance with science and shatter rumors with truth, and to counter prejudice with cooperation," he noted.

Geng called on the international community to oppose such conspiracy theories, which are "political viruses," while fighting against the coronavirus. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) Wednesday affirmed that there was no evidence showing that the novel coronavirus pneumonia was made in a laboratory or was a biological weapon.

International medical researchers on February 18 issued a statement in the medical journal The Lancet denying the bio-weapon theory.

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