Seven new strains of the coronavirus have been found in bats that eat insects in caves in Gabon, Africa, according to a new study published in multiple reports.

According to NewScientist, 18 out of 1,000 bats living in caves across the country had coronaviruses.

Five of the new seven coronaviruses are connected to earlier strains that were linked to humans. It is not clear whether the new strains can spread to humans.

These new strains had been completely unknown previously.

More than 4.8 million people worldwide have been confirmed infected by COVID-19, and about 320,000 deaths have been recorded, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University -- which experts believe is on the low side of calculations.

President Trump said he's seen evidence suggesting the virus came from a Chinese lab after Fox News asked if he knew of anything that gave him confidence that the outbreak originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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"Yes, I have," he replied at the time. "And I think that the World Health Organization [WHO] should be ashamed of themselves because they’re like the public relations agency for China."

Multiple sources previously told Fox News that it is believed standards in Wuhan were disregarded before the virus leaked, prompting Beijing to initiate a cover-up. Sources also claimed the WHO was complicit from the beginning in helping China cover its tracks.

The WHO and China have denied any wrongdoing.

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The Saturday Telegraph also reported that key figures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology previously worked or trained in Australian government labs where they conducted research on pathogens in live bats as part of an ongoing partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

According to a since-leaked dossier, the team's work at the Wuhan lab involved discovering samples of coronavirus within a cave in the Yunnan province and synthesizing a bat-derived coronavirus that could not be cured.