Wuhan Researcher Voices Frustrations on Suspension of COVID-19 Research Funding

The U.S. National Institutes of Health or NIH has reinstated a multimillion-dollar grant to a research organization to evaluate how coronaviruses are moving from bats to people.

Peter Daszak, head of New York-based EcoHealth Alliance, learned that early last month, the funding could not be used unless his organization meets "absurd conditions".

The demands, detailed in an NIH letter, were described by the organization as politically motivated. To perform this research, the organization has collaborated with the Wuhan Institute of Virology or WIV.

WIV has been at the center of unsupported hearsays that COVID-19 was a result of a coronavirus which its lab released.

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Suspension of the Grant

In April, a few days after U.S. President Donald Trump told a news reporter that the U.S. would discontinue funding project at WIV, the NIH cancelled the grant for EcoHealth Alliance.

For a decade-and-a-half now, Dazsak and EcoHealth Alliance have been collaborating with WIV virologist, Shi Zhengli. Furthermore, since 2014, a grant from the NIH funded a research of EcoHealth in China.

The said project involved collecting of feces, as well as other samples from bats, and also samples from humans who were at risk of "bat-origin viruses."

Essentially, scientific research widely proposed that COVID-19 most likely came from bats, and studies on this topic could be essential to determining other types of viruses that might lead to future pandemics. Reports said, "WIV is a sub-recipient on the funding."

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The Affected Research

After the grant's suspension, Dazsak admitted that this is "a very difficult, disappointing and worrying time," noting that he has lost people he knew because of the pandemic. He also claimed that COVID-19 is indeed a coronavirus that originated from bats.

The affected research, which, according to Dazsak, is not appropriate, per the NIH, has specific objectives. One of them was to go into China's rural regions and look for coronaviruses which are bat-origin, and identify which ones could be considered as high risk.

Another objective was to collaborate with the local communities in China's rural areas, specifically in its five provinces.

Dazsak indicated that they were targeting communities at high risk for disease-causing 'spillover' and find out if they would be infected. The research also aimed to finally discover if humans were indeed getting ill from novel coronaviruses.

Response to the NIH's Action

In response to the suspension of the grant, Dazsak said that they have written to the NIH and told the health institute that they think it is improper for certain reasons.

More so the group also asked NIH to still allow them to continue the project.  Dazsak, however, admitted that he doubted getting a favorable response to their letter.

The organization head said that the NIH has already told them to stop working on the project. He emphasized that they are not breaking any rules of the NIH.

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