The Central Intelligence Agency has assessed that the COVID-19 pandemic is "more likely" to have emerged from a lab rather than from nature, an agency spokesperson said on Saturday.

The agency had for years said it could not conclude whether COVID-19 was the result of a lab incident or it originated in nature. But in the final weeks of the Biden administration, former CIA Director William Burns asked CIA analysts and scientists to make a clear determination, stressing the pandemic's historical significance, according to a senior U.S. official.

The CIA says it has "low confidence" in its assessment that a "research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely" and notes in its statement that both scenarios - lab origin and natural origin - remain plausible.

The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was unclear the extent to which the agency has collected new intelligence on COVID-19's origins and whether that new evidence was used to formulate the latest assessment.

China’s government says it supports and has taken part in research to determine COVID-19’s origin, and has accused Washington of politicizing the matter, especially because of efforts by U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate.

Beijing has said claims that a laboratory leak likely caused the pandemic have no credibility.

In an interview with Breitbart following his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on Friday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said one of his first priorities was getting his agency to make a public assessment on the pandemic's origins.

“That’s a day-one thing for me," he said. "I’ve been on record as you know in saying I think our intelligence, our science, and our common sense all really dictate that the origins of COVID was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

More than 500,000 children in Afghanistan are at risk of malnutrition in 2025, the United Nations warned on Wednesday.

In a statement, the UN said one of the reasons for the alarming situation is climate extremes, which "have limited people's ability to feed their families."

According to a recent report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), nearly half of Afghanistan's population – about 22.9 million people – will require humanitarian aid this year to address both chronic and acute needs.

Afghanistan's fragile economy, ongoing natural disasters and climate-induced shocks, along with regional political instability, continue to impede recovery from decades of conflict, the report noted.

Since the Islamist Taliban's return to power in August 2021, Afghanistan does not have access to its foreign reserves in Western banks, further exacerbating the country's economic crisis.

Unemployment and poverty affect around 48% of the population, according to the UN.

The country remains highly vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

More severe flooding is anticipated in 2025, which like in previous years, is expected to destroy homes, agricultural land and displace communities, further worsening the already dire humanitarian situation.

Members of Donald Trump's presidential transition team are laying the groundwork for the United States to withdraw from the World Health Organization on the first day of his second term, according to a health law expert familiar with the discussions.

"I have it on good authority that he plans to withdraw, probably on Day One or very early in his administration," said Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health at Georgetown University in Washington and director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, Reuters reported.

The Financial Times was first to report on the plans, citing two experts. The second expert, former White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha, was not immediately available for comment.

The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The plan, which aligns with Trump's longstanding criticism of the U.N. health agency, would mark a dramatic shift in U.S. global health policy and further isolate Washington from international efforts to battle pandemics.

Trump has nominated several critics of the organization to top public health positions, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic who is up for the post of secretary of Health and Human Services, which oversees all major U.S. health agencies including the CDC and FDA, read the report.

Trump initiated the year-long withdrawal process from the WHO in 2020 but six months later his successor, President Joe Biden, reversed the decision.

Trump has argued that the agency failed to hold China accountable for the early spread of COVID-19. He has repeatedly called the WHO a puppet of Beijing and vowed to redirect U.S. contributions to domestic health initiatives.

A WHO spokesperson declined to directly comment but referred Reuters to comments by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a press briefing on Dec. 10 in which he was asked whether he was concerned that the Trump administration would withdraw from the organization.

Tedros said at the time that the WHO needed to give the U.S. time and space for the transition. He also voiced confidence that states could finalize a pandemic agreement by May 2025.

Critics warn that a U.S. withdrawal could undermine global disease surveillance and emergency response systems, Reuters reported.

"The U.S. would lose influence and clout in global health and China would fill the vacuum. I can't imagine a world without a robust WHO. But U.S. withdrawal would severely weaken the agency," Gostin said.