Another $1 million U.S. grant goes to backer of Wuhan lab

EcoHealth Alliance, a group whose risky bat coronavirus research with a Chinese lab has stirred controversy, collected a new, $1 million grant from the United States’ National Science Foundation to predict and prevent future pandemics, the National Pulse reported.

The research group will partner with Boston University to “strategize methods of early infectious disease detection and intervention,” according to the grant announcement on EcoHealth’s website.

“EHA researchers will focus on predictive models of location and likely pathogens,” the organization’s announcement said. “This will be accomplished by first compiling a list of mutagenic RNA viruses with a high risk of spillover based on their ability to spread, cause outbreak, and cause severe illness. Next, the team will identify locations at risk of spillover and localized spread by assembling a list of animals known to host one or more of the focal viruses.”

The new grant came after Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth Alliance, has been accused of helping to spark the Covid-19 pandemic with his organization’s pandemic prevention work, Science magazine reported. He has downplayed the possibility of the virus originating in a lab as opposed to nature. – READ MORE