Despite fears his initial work at Wuhan lab triggered pandemic: Peter Daszak is paid $650,000 to study bat coronaviruses
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.
