US health officials have given a hugely controversial research organization another $650,000 (£580k) grant to experiment on Covid-like viruses – despite fears similar risky work may have actually sparked the pandemic.
EcoHealth Alliance, run by British zoologist Peter Daszak, funded studies in Wuhan – the Chinese city where the pandemic began – on manipulated coronaviruses.
Such research, known as 'gain of function', can see viruses deliberately engineered to become more dangerous to humans.
EcoHealth Alliance's five-year experiment will investigate 'the potential for future bat coronavirus emergence' in Asia, with scientists set to trawl caves in Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam in the hunt to prevent another viral crisis.
The grant was awarded last month by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is still ran by Dr Anthony Fauci.
Dr Fauci is known to be close to Dr Daszak, who thanked the American Government's departing chief medical adviser for downplaying theories that Covid may have been created in a lab.
EcoHealth Alliance is said to have received $60million (£53.5m) in federal cash over the past decade. Some of this money was funneled straight to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The justification for the grant says that previous research in this field 'identifies the border region of Southern China, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam as a high risk for future emergence of novel coronaviruses and the potential site where SARS-CoV-2 first 'spilled over' from bats to people'.
The research will also include testing communities that live in close proximity to wildlife in south east Asia for coronaviruses.
According to the NIH's website, the research will include supplying 'viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine development'.
The definition of insanity…
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