WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th September, 2021) More than 900 pages of newly released documents detail the US-based health organization EcoHealth Alliance's use of Federal money to study bat-borne coronaviruses at labs in Wuhan, China, the Intercept reported.
The trove of documents includes two previously unpublished grant proposals funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, headed by Anthony Fauci, as well as project updates relating to EcoHealth Alliance's research, the report said on Tuesday.
One of the grants, outlines an effort led by EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak to screen thousands of bat samples for coronaviruses. The research also involved screening people who work with live animals, the report said.
After reviewing the documents, Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright told the Intercept that new coronaviruses were constructed in a Chinese lab and then tested for their ability to infect mice that had been genetically altered with human-type receptors in cells.
The documents raise additional questions about the theory that the pandemic may have begun in a lab accident, an idea that Daszak has aggressively dismissed, the report said.
The grant was initially awarded for a five-year period - from 2014 to 2019. Funding was renewed in 2019 but suspended by the Trump administration in April 2020, the report added.
The second grant based on a 2019 proposal appears prescient as it calls for deploying resources in Asia to prepare for an outbreak of a new disease, according to the report.
