China hosted global project to look at coronavirus in bat populations

NEW DELHI: China and the USA were said to be leaders of a project to identify presence of viruses in wildlife with the potential to cross over to humans. Correspondence by Ping Cheng, Director, NIAID Office in China has detailed these contacts which took place.

These details are under the spotlight as a debate is emerging over the role of Wuhan Institute of Technology in the spread of coronavirus.

Cheng writes that Global Virome Project will be visiting Beijing to discuss the scope of the project which is sponsored by USAID and other organisations.

"They plan to have US and China to be leaders of the project. The China host is China CDC and our dear friend George Gao is China POC for the project. The purpose of the project is to identify viruses present in wildlife with potential crossing over to humans, causing human infection and spread", Cheng wrote.

"Following the identification of the viruses is the development of vaccines to protect the human population", Cheng wrote. This is exactly the sequence of events with Covid 19 when first the virus broke and then vaccines came in the picture.

Cheng further wrote that China has huge capacity for vaccine development with 7 national owned vaccine manufacturing facility and over 30 private vaccine making companies.

"One of the partners in this project is Ecohealth Alliance. Peter Daszak from EcoHealth Alliance is one of the leaders of the GVP project and he has NIAID grant from RDB looking at the coronavirus in bat populations in China in collaboration with Wuhan Institute of Virology. He came to visit me once in the Embassy. This grant has direct connection with the purpose of GVP", Cheng wrote. (IANS)

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