Informed US about coronavirus spread on January 4: China

Beijing : China defended its actions in fight against coronavirus with a lengthy white paper which claimed Beijing 'wasted no time' in passing the information about coronavirus outbreak with the WHO and that the Chinese Centre for Disease Control informed its US counterpart about the unknown virus as early as January 4.

Covid-19 infection was first reported in China's Wuhan last year before rapidly spreading in the country and then globally.

National health commission, Ma Xiaowei, said: "The Chinese government did not delay or cover up anything."

"Instead, we have immediately reported virus data and relevant information about the epidemic to the international community and made an important contribution to the prevention and control of the epidemic around the world," Ma said at the release of the official document in Beijing on Sunday.

The United States has been continuously accusing China for not taking prompt and swift actions to contain the coronavirus spread.

The US president has also made efforts to launch an international probe into the origin of the virus.

Beijing has repeatedly denied Trump’s allegations, saying it kept the world informed from the start, and adding that it was in favour of a WHO-led probe after the pandemic was over.

Until Saturday, China has reported 4,634 deaths and more than 83,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19.