EcoHealth Alliance CEO Peter Daszak just got another taxpayer-funded windfall. Instead of being deposed regarding his firm’s work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he is receiving a new pile of cash from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The new award gives EcoHealth Alliance $4,675,023 for a five-year project in Liberia, on the continent of Africa. USAID awarded the funding well after serious questions surfaced about EcoHealth Alliance’s coronavirus research. There are ample concerns about whether those activities violated the Obama administration’s ban on gain-of-function research even if they did not create the SARS-CoV-2 virus. //

So maybe EcoHealth Alliance is going to Liberia to educate residents on the dangers of eating bat soup. However, when you go to the website, it appears that all of EcoHealth’s missions revolve around identifying viruses in wildlife that could be “emerging threats.” This mission is the same one Daszak proposed to DARPA in the PREEMPT program. That proposed project aimed to identify new zoonotic pathogens that might jump from animals to infect humans. Ecohealth Alliance proposed sending teams into the woods to stick Q-tips into the mouths, ears, and rear ends of wild animals.

Then Daszak’s team would mess with the viruses in various ways in the lab. This process could include repeatedly passing them through mice with human characteristics to see if they could evolve to infect people. Incredibly, Daszak and his team suggested developing aerosolized vaccines containing versions of these viruses that appeared to have potential. Then they planned to spray it into the habitats where host animals may become infected with the virus of concern. Even our most advanced military technology development command thought the idea was reckless and could cause disease outbreaks. //

In layman’s terms, USAID has funded projects led by UC Davis to stick Q-tips and needles into animals, pull out pathogens and then assess whether or not they could cause human disease. The team has sampled more than 164,000 animals and people looking for disease spillover from animals. The project has detected 1,100 unique viruses, including 949 novel ones. EcoHealth Alliance is a Core Implementing Partner of the PREDICT program. //

According to EcoHealth Alliance’s website, USAID’s PREDICT program funds this work globally:

The PREDICT project seeks to identify new emerging infectious diseases that could become a threat to human health. PREDICT partners locate their research in geographic “hotspots” and focus on wildlife that are most likely to carry zoonotic diseases – animals such as bats, rodents, and nonhuman primates.

EcoHealth Alliance works at the leading edge of this field by building local capabilities and testing high-risk wildlife in Bangladesh, Côte d’Ivoire, Republic of Congo, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Liberia, Malaysia, and Thailand. After scientists collect swabs or small amounts of blood, they analyze the samples in the lab to look for evidence of disease.