One of the most outspoken deniers of the man-made hypothesis is British zoologist Dr. Peter Daszak (pictured), known among friends as the “odd northerner” but seen as a potential orchestrator of the pandemic by proponents of the lab leak theory
The debate surrounding the origins of Covid has been ongoing since the virus first wreaked havoc in early 2020.
Some top virologists believe the coronavirus may have spread to humans from an infected animal, possibly at a wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Others believe it leaked from a secret lab in the same city. Whether or not it was intentional or accidental is an even more controversial part of the “lab leak” theory.
One of the most outspoken deniers of the man-made hypothesis is British zoologist Dr. Peter Daszak, known among friends as the “odd northerner” but seen as a potential orchestrator of the pandemic by proponents of the lab leak theory.
He is best known for his role in facilitating “risky” coronavirus research in China through the EcoHealth Alliance, the nonprofit organization of which he is president.
The New York-based organization has secured $60 million (£53 million) in US government funding for scientific research over the past decade.
As it turns out, some of that money has since ended up in the pockets of researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), the lab at the center of the lab leak claims. Part of this research involved manipulating Covid-like viruses.
It has now been revealed that the EcoHealth Alliance has received an additional $650,000 (£580,000) from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to crawl through caves in Southeast Asia looking for bats carrying coronavirus , although there have been fears that similar work may have sparked the pandemic.
The new contract gives project manager Dr. Daszak and his team gave the go-ahead to analyze behavioral and environmental risk factors for coronavirus transmission to humans from animals.
It warns that this part of the world has “high wildlife coronavirus diversity” and a large proportion of the population is regularly exposed to wildlife that could become infected.
Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam are particularly at risk, according to project details released by the US National Institutes of Health.
Over the course of five years, the team will identify cases of people becoming infected with coronavirus, assess the risk and drivers of community transmission, and scale up and test public health interventions to contain an outbreak.
Scientists argue that such research is vital to curb diseases like Covid. But others have sounded the alarm about its possible involvement in outbreaks.
The latest order puts Dr. Daszak, who hails from the mining town of Dukinfield on the outskirts of Manchester, is back in the spotlight.
The researcher, who grew up with a younger brother, a Ukrainian father and a Welsh mother, studied zoology at the University of Bangor in Wales and the University of East London.
The expert on zoonosis – the transmission of viruses from animals to humans – has written more than 300 scientific papers in his career spanning more than three decades and collaborated with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US President’s chief medical adviser.
dr Daszak, who lives in New York with his wife Janet, joined EcoHealth – formerly The Wildlife Trust – in 2001. His early career focused on frog-borne diseases.
But he has also worked with researchers in China for 15 years, including Dr. Shi Zhengli, a virologist at WIV nicknamed “Bat Woman”.
Originally focused on protection, EcoHealth is now working across the world to find out the origins of viruses, map where they spread and analyze them to find out where the next outbreak might take place.
Records show that Dr. Daszak has raised millions of dollars in grants from US government agencies on behalf of the EcoHealth Alliance, receiving $354,000 (£314,000) in 2019.
These funds have often been contracted out to other laboratories, including the WIV, to conduct research into bat coronaviruses in mines.
As part of the partnership, researchers sampled thousands of bats and found that Sars originated from horseshoe bats, which are distributed in southern and central China and traded in wet markets.
And two years before Covid showed up, Dr. Daszak plans to work with WIV scientists to modify coronaviruses and release them into bats as part of a plan to vaccinate against the virus.