The head of a research group that studies bat-borne coronaviruses in China, as well as the COVID-19 strain that was destroyed around the world, said the U.S. government’s decision to cut funding to his organization would cut American public health I warned that I would be at risk.

The EcoHealth Alliance research grant was abruptly terminated last month by the National Institutes of Health, a major US government agency responsible for biomedical and public health research. EcoHealth Alliance research in China focuses on the identification and warning of coronaviruses that are dangerous to human health.

“I’m really worried about where this leaves us,” said Peter Dazak, director of a New York-based organization in a USA TODAY interview.

“What will happen to COVID-20 if I overcome COVID-19? What will happen to COVID-21? Who will go out to find them? Our grant is where these viruses are It was specifically designed to identify and not harm Americans, “he said.

The National Institutes of Health confirmed that the Eco Health Alliance’s $ 3.4 million grant, distributed over six years, was canceled on April 24. However, we will not discuss the details of how the decision was made. A respected illness ecologist, Dazak said he received a letter from the National Institutes of Health that the award ended for convenience as it did not “fit” the institution’s goals.

The EcoHealth Alliance is collaborating with the Wuhan Virology Institute, the state-owned Chinese laboratory in the city where COVID-19 first appeared in December. The institute received negative attention because of its hypothesis that it was associated with an unanswered question about the origin of the virus. These questions revolve around China’s reluctance to share information about the lab’s biosecurity, the interpretation of contextual evidence linking the lab to early infectious diseases, and some aspects of the outbreak. ..

The first reported politico Allow cancellation On April 27, a few days before the end of the EcoHealth Alliance funding, Mike Lauer told Mike Lauer, Deputy Director of Off-Campus Research at the National Institutes of Health, “All China in any way linked to this award. I need to know about the site. “

The EcoHealth Alliance has been studying the Chinese bat coronavirus for over 10 years. Meanwhile, it established a deep link and worked closely with the Wuhan Virology Institute. China’s institutes are in a cloud of suspicion as US senior officials such as President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have persistently associated unproven theories about the origin of COVID-19.

No evidence to support Trump accusationNor is it supported by infectious disease specialists. US intelligence has concluded that the coronavirus is not artificial. They have not come to a conclusion as to whether the disease originated in a Chinese laboratory or was transmitted to humans via animals.

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Dazak was unable to clearly explain why the award was cut. The EcoHealth Alliance has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since at least 2002.

The EcoHealth Alliance was a major recipient of the $ 3.4 million grant. Vice winners were Wuhan Virology Institute, East China Normal University in Shanghai, Pathogen Biology Institute in Beijing and Duke NUS Medical School in Singapore. “Supplemental Prize” means the EcoHealth Alliance, which acted as an intermediary between these institutions and the US Government for the purpose of funding collaborative research on bat-borne coronaviruses. It didn’t pay them directly.

The EcoHealth Alliance has no suspected misconduct in China since the outbreak began in Wuhan late last year and has not been investigated.

Founded in 1971 by a British conservationist, EcoHealth Alliance Annual Budget According to the latest available financial accounts published on that website, one of the $ 16 million in 2018 was a government grant. The rest of the funding came from a mix of donations from science foundations, businesses and individuals. The group has been working on projects from forest health in Liberia to biomonitoring in West Asia in the United States and about 30 countries around the world. A charity navigator assessing the transparency, accountability and governance of non-profit organizations 4 star rating – The highest point.

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The Department of State is required to do a background check on foreign organizations that are recipients of US Government research funding and did not respond to requests for comment explaining why the grant was terminated.

The title of the EcoHealth Alliance research proposal was first awarded under the Obama administration and then re-approved under Trump in July last year, “Understand the risk of bat coronavirus emergence.”

“That’s exactly what we all suffer from right now,” Dazak said.

“One of our goals (of research) was to know more about the gene sequences of the bat coronavirus and bring them to the hands of people designing vaccines and drugs. We had a pandemic. Sometimes I just started working on this, “he said.

The Wuhan Virology Institute is equipped with facilities to study coronaviruses and other dangerous pathogens, and relatively close to Wuhan’s seafood market, but not part of it. From that, all of the Chinese coronaviruses that have been the focus for Trump and some of his inner circles were first detected last year.

China’s lack of transparency about how the virus initially spread has expanded its focus. Beijing has also spread false rumors and false information in social media and official statements that the US military may have brought the coronavirus to China.

Mr Trump acknowledged the EcoHealth Alliance grant at a press conference on April 17, and said he intends to end it “very quickly.” When asked if he saw evidence that the virus justified the theory that might have occurred in the lab on April 30, Trump answered yes, yes. A few days later, at Fox News Town Hall on May 4, Mr. Trump said he was waiting for a “very strong report” on whether the institute was involved in a pandemic. “In my view, they made a mistake. They tried to cover it,” he said, and mentions an alleged attempt by Chinese authorities to hide information about the nature and origin of the virus. did. China denies having withheld or suppressed these details.

Chinese critics He accused him of masking the extent of coronavirus outbreaks by underreporting both the total number of cases and the dead suffering from the disease.

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In addition to the whirlpool, Pompeo on Wednesday had no apparent contradiction in his competing claims that “we are not certain” as to where the virus came from, “but this came from the lab. There is important evidence that. “

More than a month, Senator Senator Bob Menendez, the Supreme Democratic Party of the Senate Foreign Relations Commission, called for “useless,” asking Pompeo to share details of US information about the origin of the coronavirus. Menendez wrote another letter to Pompeo on Thursday, saying: “ The answers to these questions are important, as they prevent further spread, limit the wave of subsequent infections and help prepare for future pandemics, The answers to these questions are important. “

Linfa Wang, head of emerging infectious diseases at Duke NUS Medical School in Singapore, one of the EcoHealth Alliance’s “sub-awards”, has a relatively good scientific understanding of why and how viruses jump from animals to humans. Poor, but said he is constantly improving. An agreement between mainstream researchers was that less than 1% of viruses affecting mammals were found, he said.

“50 years ago, no one was watching bats, mosquitoes and rodents were all,” he said, bats being particularly effective against viruses that are deadly to humans over time. It has evolved into a “reservoir,” but not necessarily on its own. Their unique physiology that is extremely stressed to allow them to fly.

“Can you predict where the next jump (animal to human) will come from? No.”

Still, Dazak says funding for field studies of coronaviruses abroad is more necessary than ever because the viruses with the highest public health risks are in the world’s most populous countries, not the United States. Have said.

“If you want to know anything about your next pandemic, you need to work in China,” he said. Daszak described the Southeast Asian region as a “hotbed” for a new virus.

“People may imagine this image of one of the Chinese laboratories, which somehow leads to a large pandemic if you drop a Petri dish. That’s not right. Millions every year. People go to the bat cave, hunt and eat wildlife, occur every day, they are exposed to the bat virus every day, it takes to go to the city to cough and spread the virus I’m just one person. ”

“The purpose of our work is to bring direct benefits to US national security and public health, or we’ll be at the forefront again when the next virus is infected.”

Contributed by John Fritze, Deirdre Shesgreen

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