Key South East Asia Grants — Part 3: High-stakes sampling in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam
This article is one of three in the series reviewing key South East Asia grants, with a particular focus over Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam:
1. PREDICT-2 (USAID) and the U.S. Sanctions over Myanmar and Laos
2. Oddities in EHA R01 grant AI110964 (NIH)
3. High stakes sampling in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam
Findings:
- The countries bordering Yunnan top the south, namely Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, are considered as an essential hotspot of bat coronaviruses. Western teams have been active there since around 2011, while Chinese teams started sampling there a bit earlier, in 2008 at the latest.
- Building on these Western and Chinese experiences, and following a reduction of the local wildlife trade in Yunnan in parallel with of an increase in transborder trade, Peter Daszak arranged for an extension of sampling activities of his NIH grant 1R01 AI110964 (‘Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus emergence’) to Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, and a few more countries further south, for the period June 2017 - May 2019.
- On 24 Apr 2020, as the pandemic was spreading through the world, the NIH terminated 2R01 AI110964, the five-year extension of the original 1R01 AI110964. That extension had a focus on China, but would have included work with the WIV on the exploitation and analysis of the samples collected in these additional countries in 2017–19 under the 1R01 grant, and sent directly to the WIV.
- Immediately following that termination, in order to pursue its activities in these South East Asian countries, EHA used money from various private foundations (Wallace Research Foundation, Freeman Charitable Trust, Whitehead Foundation) and from some private donors (Pamela Thye, on the Board of Directors of EcoHealth Alliance and an anonymous donor via Schwab Charitable).
- Being private foundations or private individuals, there is no public record on how the money what spent. For instance, starting in July 2020, EcoHealth Alliance got a new 2-year grant from the Wallace Research Foundation grant, ‘Mitigating the risk of coronavirus emergence via human-wildlife interactions in South-East Asia’, with a geographical focus over Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, with Peter Daszak as Principal Investigator (P.I.). All we know is that EHA received $250,000 each year under that grant, thanks to the tax returns of the foundation.
- In other words, despite the very public cancellation of the NIH 2R01 AI110964 grant in April 2020, following the COVID-19 outbreak, Peter Daszak and EHA in fact never stopped at any time their focus on Myanmar, Laos. and Vietnam, using a variety of funding, most of it private funding without any public reporting obligation.
- In fact, Daszak had stated just as much in an email to his NIH program manager and a host of other scientists just after his April 2020 grant cancellation.
- Very soon after the expiration of the Wallace Research Foundation 2-year grant, in July 2022, EHA benefited from a new 5-year NIH grant AI163118: ‘Analyzing the potential for future bat coronavirus emergence in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam’, with again Peter Daszak as P.I.
- That grant was issued with funds for foreign Components in Myanmar (including LBVD) and Laos, but with a specific interdiction to expend or draw down the funds ‘pending the resolution of internal administrative issues’. The grant ‘administrative issues’ are not detailed, but may be understood by considering the creative methods used by PREDICT-2 in paying for testing at the LBVD laboratory in Myanmar, or the open questions about the actual contributions of the designated local partners under the geographical extension of 1RO1 AI110964.
1. The importance of coronaviruses sampling in Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and neighbouring countries
Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, being the three countries bordering China to the south of Yunnan, are on the very top of the list for potential locations of SARS-like viruses with zoonotic potential for China. These three countries form a belt of high bat species density. In particular, the Nu/Salween into Myanmar, the Lancang/Mekong river valley into Laos, the Hong (Red) flowing into Vietnam, are important corridors linking these three countries to Yunnan [items 1a,1b].
On top of that ecological importance, as Daszak explained in a May 2016 email to the Program Manager for his NIH grant R01 AI110964, there had been a reduced amount of wildlife in Southern China market compared to previous years, but increased trade wildlife with these neighbouring countries [item 2].
Together, these were two good reasons for Daszak to seek a refocus of that R01 grant towards Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, and a bit further South towards Thailand and Cambodia [footnote 1].
2. Precedent of Western programs sampling in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam (2011–2018)
2.1 PREDICT sampling
The PREDICT program extended from 2009 to 2019. During that time, the program funded some bat sampling in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam (among many other countries).
Some key elements of that effort are reviewed in this section.
Some important clarifications on PREDICT activities
a. PREDICT actors in South East Asia
First we must clarify who was doing what for PREDICT in these key South East Asia countries, between Metabiota, the Smithsonian Institute and EcoHealth Alliance (the ‘subs’ for sub-contractors).
- The Smithsonian was the PREDICT ‘sub’ in Myanmar. EHA may still cooperate with them as a partner.
- Until mid-2017, Metabiota was the PREDICT ‘sub’ in China and Indonesia. In mid-2017, EHA became the ‘sub’ there, but EHA was already the lead partner in these two countries by the time the official transition happened (which was thus more of an administrative aspect under USAID). Metabiota remained the ‘sub’ in Lao.
- EHA was the PREDICT sub in Thailand, and the lead partner in Indonesia and China, before becoming the ‘sub’ there too in 2017.
b. Sampling vs. Testing
Then, we must point that the PREDICT subcontractors could be involved in different ways.
- A sub could do both the sampling and the testing. Sampling would be done with a local team that they would train, and testing would be done in an designated local. lab that would have contracted with USAID (this said, some samples would typically be split and one half sent to the US).
- A local entity, or another sub (see transitions from Metabiota to EHA) could have done the sampling in the past, and the present sub would do the testing, or another sub may occasionally help with the testing.
Note that the standard ‘PREDICT Biological Sample Sharing and Submission and Diagnostic Data-sharing’ policy recognises the two cases above, so as to clarify ownership of samples and of results. See the July 2015 version.
2.1.1 Myanmar (2016–2018)
PREDICT-2 did some bat sampling campaign in Myanmar from May 2016 to August 2018, with testing winding down by March 2019. This led to the detection of 3 beta covs (PREDICT_CoV92/93/96 and some alphacovs (PREDICT_CoV-35/47/82/90)
We already covered in part 1 of this series the sampling and testing there, and the difficulties presented by the US TVPA regulations.
2.1.2 Laos (2011–2013)
PREDICT-1 funded the very first study to investigate the diversity of coronaviruses in bats across a variety of sites in Laos in 2011–2013.
Lacroix et al (2017), ‘Genetic diversity of coronaviruses in bats in Lao PDR and Cambodia’, details the results of that PREDICT-1 study, involving a sampling campaign from 2010 to 2013.
During the first year of that sampling campaign (2010), sample collection focussed on Cambodia and involved the Institut Pasteur in Cambodia (IPC) [footnote 2]. For 2011–2013, the collection was done both in Laos and Cambodia, this time by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), today one of the main PREDICT implementing partners.
Most samples were obtained from freshly dead bats purchased in food markets, with the remaining bats collected from subsistence hunters. The collection sites were rather wide spread across Laos (north of the red line in image below), and Cambodia (south of the red line), with three sites in Laos immediately across the border from Yunnan, including two in Louang Namtha province, where samples were collected in Dec 2012 [item 3].
2.1.3 Vietnam (2013–2014)
Another PREDICT-1 study sampled bat guano farms and bat roosts in one southern province (Soc Trang) from January 2013 to March 2014. This led to the identification of two alphacovs (PREDICT_CoV-17/35).
See for instance Huong et al (2020).
2.1.4 Laos (~2017)
Metabiota, under PREDICT-2, was in charge of sampling in Laos (human and animal samples).
The local laboratories used by Metabiota were the National Center for Laboratory and Epidemiology (NCLE) and the National Animal Health Laboratory (NAHL). It is not clear if the collection of animal samples had already started.
In September 2017, David Mclver of Metabiota noted that:
In terms of data sharing and virology surveillance, we have worked on a separate document that outlines rules and regulations surrounding sharing of data, samples, results, and the release of test results. In addition ot the PREDICT-standardized data sharing agreements, our Lao PDR PREDICT team also went a step further to create a document that specificaly states when, and under which circumstances, data can be shared or viewed, and by whom. This document has been signed by representatives from PREDICT, DLF, DCDC, and FAO. I’l be happy to share copies of al these agreements with you when I’m in Laos, if you
While we have already collected some human samples already, testing has not yet begun. Since we’re still waiting for final USAID approval for contract agreements with NCLE, we’ve haven’t been able ti move forward with testing yet. Right now, we have about 180 human samples frozen ni LN2 at NCLE. We’re al very eager to get started on testing!
2.2 US DoD sampling in Laos (2017)
A key sampling study was done by the US Naval Medical Research Center-Asia (NMRC-A) in 2017, in collaboration with the Institut Pasteur du Laos, Vientiane. The sampling and study was funded by the NMRC-A, in support of the Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (DoD-GEIS).
During that sampling campaign both bats themselves and their ectoparasites (mite, batflies) were sampled. The only research published on that campaign covered the parasites, not the bats.
The growing US force presence in this region and the central geostrategic positioning of Laos in the Indochinese peninsula (sharing borders with China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand) justify the urgent need to establish an inventory of the geographic distribution of bat species, of their ectoparasites, and of the pathogens bred and potentially transmitted by both bats and/or their ectoparasites.
The sampling at the time was done not far in the north of Vientiane, in the contiguous Feuang, HinHeup and Vangvieng districts.
A reliable source has stated that the NMRC-A (as it funding status authorizes it to do) had refused the demand by the Institut Pasteur to send the bat samples kept in Vientiane to Paris, for NGS sequencing and further analysis, as was done with the ectoparasites samples.
Following the Covid-19 outbreak, in late 2020 — early 2021, a team led by Marc Eloit of the Institut Pasteur in Paris went back to Feuang District to do some bat sampling, with some European funding. This resulted in the discovery of Banal-52, the closest relative to date of SARS-CoV-2 (see Temmam et al (2022), Marc Eloit lead-author). [footnote 3]
3. Precedents of Chinese teams sampling on their own across the border from Yunnan (2008, 2014)
In his 2016 email to the NIH manager of his grant R01 AI110964 [item 2], Peter Daszak explained that ‘our collaborators and field team in China have great contacts in these [SE Asia] countries’.
In this section, we shall offer a few relevant examples of Chinese teams involved in bat collection/sampling in Myanmar and Laos.
3.1 Whole bats collected in Myanmar in 2008
One of the earliest references to Chinese teams sampling bats or acquiring bats specimens in these neighbouring countries is from a PLA team from Kunming (Yunnan) and Changchun (Jilin), which sampled in the border areas of Myanmar adjoining Yunnan. See He et al (2013).
The PLA team purchased 853 freshly dead insectivorous bats from Burmese people and processed them in labs in China to analyze their virome.
3.2 Bats sampling in Laos at some time in 2014
A WIV team also sampled for bat coronaviruses in Laos, just across the border from Yunnan, in the years before the pandemic.
A good example is given by Wang et al (2021).“Genomic Characterization of Diverse Bat Coronavirus HKU10 in Hipposideros Bats”.
That paper was written exclusively by mainland chinese authors, including Shi Zheng-li and Ben Hu (main author) of the WIV. There is no Laos author and no Laos institution of any kind mentioned in the paper. That study was funded by various Chinese grants, including the strategic priority research program of the Chinese academy of sciences (XDB29010101), and partly by a PREDICT grant (Cooperative Agreement no. AID-OAA-A-14–00102).
The paper clearly states that some sampling in Laos was undertaken by WIV teams [items 4a, 4b, 5, 6]. 121 bat samples were taken in Laos, across 3 bat families and 5 genera [Supplementary Table S2].
The paper explains that all the samples (in China and Laos) were taken between 2006 and 2016, as part of a sampling effort focussed otherwise mostly focused on China [item 6] [footnote 4].
An inspection of the GenBank records shows that a Laos sample discussed in the paper was collected in 2014, by co-author Xing-Lou Yang, in relation to a HKU10 isolate [item 7].
The paper stipulates that all sampling was performed with approval from the Animal Ethics Committee of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, dated July 2012 [item 8] (something rather difficult to comprehend for all the sampling that took place between 2006 and July 2012!).
The Laos samples were not processed locally, but instead sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) for analysis.
The paper does not explain if the sampling in Laos conformed to any applicable regulation of that country, but also with PREDICT standards. Again, there is no mention of any Lao institution or framework in the paper.
One may speculate that the sampling from Laos may have involved short trips across the border from, as it is a 5 hour drive maximum from Mengla in Yunnan to Luang Namtha province in Laos and its Nam Ha Bio-Diversity Conservation Area [item 9]. An eVisa will get someone through the Biten/Mohan border crossing, while a Chinese citizen can just get a visa at the border if necessary.
The Issue with the Lao samples of 2014 published in Latinne et al.
This distinction between sampling and testing under PREDICT (‘Some important clarifications on PREDICT activities’, point b) is important as it allows Peter Daszak to say ‘our team never sampled in Lao’, which is technically correct since:
- WIV team (led by Xinglou Yang) did the sampling immediately across the border in Lao in November 2014, out of any normal PREDICT protocole covering Lao.
- this sampling happened at a time when Metabiota was the PREDICT ‘sub’ for field work in China, not EHA, even if EHA was already actively cooperating on lab work with the WIV.
The samples from Lao would have been tested at some later point, possibly after EHA took over the sub role in China from Metabiota. In any case, that does not matter much since at the time of the sampling, EHA was already the main partner of the WIV, which did the sampling and later the testing. So EHA should have known what the WIV was doing in Lao, even more than Metabiota which did not front the relation with the WIV.
The samples were eventually included in Latinne et al (2020), a EHA-WIV PREDICT publication with that was meant to be about China samples, and also in Wang et al. (2021), another EHA-WIV PREDICT publication.
From that point on, any testing of these samples, and any publication of their results, fell effectively under a PREDICT framework, and were subject to PREDICT rules (see ‘PREDICT Biological Sample Sharing and Submission and Diagnostic Data-sharing’ policy). Then one day someone at USAID or EHA realized that:
- Some PREDICT-tested samples were not from China.
- Worse, they had actually been literally poached from Lao, with zero documentation or previous specific agreement which PREDICT could have fallen back on. This meant that these samples did not fulfil at all the required PREDICT criteria for non-PREDICT samples to be worked on under PREDICT, and the results to be included in PREDICT-backed papers.
We can easily see what happened. Most likely,
- EHA was not aware that the WIV field team under Xinglou Yang had poached samples immediately across the border in Lao in 2014, during a Yunnan field trip.
- Nor was EHA aware that these ended up being included in the data of Latinne et al.
- So EHA did not expect Lao samples to be pulled from the WIV freezers with the Yunnan field trip of Nov 2014.
- And EHA found about it, if faced two problems:
(i) These samples were in breach of PREDICT rules required for inclusion in PREDICT studies. That’s a major ethical issue for a publication.
(ii) It showed that EHA had no real idea of what the WIV was doing.
The following 2017 conversation shows how non-PREDICT protocol data should be carefully considered for inclusion in a publication, with a possible release only post-publication.
4 Bats sampling in Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam: The lessons of EcoHealth Alliance R01 AI110964 grant (2017–2019)
4. 1 Official documentation and communications
Going back to grant NIH grant R01 AI110964 [item 2], as reviewed in details in part 2 of this series, the grant documentation established that sampling may well been done there by Chinese teams, or at least may have involved them alongside in-countries partners:
‘Samples will be collected by either our current China field team personnel working directly with our collaborators in these countries or by respective in-country personnel and require no more than 10% budget modification total (from already budgeted China fieldwork) for any non-China in-country work’.
[source: EcoHealth harvesting viruses across Asia White Coat Waste.pdf, February 2017, p.70–72]
We get actual confirmation of sampling under the grant in an email from 2020, written after the end of the sampling campaign (and after the start of the outbreak). The emails state that samples were collected in Myanmar, Vietnam [item 10].
4.2 Public denials of sampling in Laos
Item 10 also stipulates that sampling did not place in Laos due to ‘administrative’ issues.
In line with the wording of item 10, EcoHealth Alliance is publicly on record as stating that no sampling in Laos took place under the ‘cooperative partnership’ of the NIH grant R01 AI110964 [items 11a, 11b].
4.3 Latinne et al and the Laos ambiguity
Latinne et al (2020), ‘Origin and cross-species transmission of bat coronaviruses in China’ (Linfa Wang, Shi Zhengli and Peter Daszak main authors), focusses on samples collected and/or processed under EcoHealth Alliance grants.
That paper does not mention sampling in Laos in the text itself. However, a Genbank entry for bat coronavirus HKU9 isolate 7554–2, that is explicitly linked to that paper, corresponds to a sample taken in Laos [item 12].
The date of the sampling that delivered that HKU9 isolate is not clear, but may be around 2014, the sampling year of another bat coronavirus isolate with a very close serial number (HKU10, isolate 7496) [item 7].
While Latinne et al (2020) was funded in part under EHA R01 grant AI110964, which denies sampling in Laos due to local issues, that paper was also funded by the strategic priority research program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB29010101), which we have also encountered in Wang et al (2021) [section 3.2].
Hence, it is possible that the sampling was done by Chinese teams in Laos, in the ‘minimalist’ conditions described in section 2.2, than under direct EcoHealth Alliance supervision.
In that sense, the denials of EcoHealth Alliance (section 4.2) could be technically right. Still EcoHealth Alliance, and particularly Peter Daszak, would have necessarily been fully aware of that sampling in Laos by Chinese teams, while he was actively distancing EHA from it [items 11a, 11b].
4.4 China’s role and the Global Virome Project:
As part 2 in this series of article explained, one way to understand the situation on the ground, the de-facto transfer of sampling and testing responsibilities to China for countries bordering it to the South, and the subsequent attitude of EHA post outbreak, is to remember that at the very same time Peter Daszak was hoping to get China to play a leading role in the Global Virome Project (a $1.3bln cash-cow of grants) [item 13].
In that sense, the NIH grant R01 AI110964 wording for new sampling in Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, with testing at the WIV, was not only likely anticipating the decisive role that EHA hoped to see China play, but also acknowledging what was likely partially a fait accompli, since WIV teams were already sampling in Laos and sending the samples to the WIV at the latest by 2014 [items 4a, 4b, 5, 6, 7].
Said otherwise, once the outbreak started, Peter Daszak may seem to become much more hesitant in acknowledging directly the sampling done by Chinese teams in Laos, and sought to distance EHA and R01 AI110964 from it, despite his strong connection to these Chinese teams, and despite his previous plan to see these teams take the lead in sampling in Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam.
This may also help understand why EHA was trying to keep sampling in China during PREDICT-2 year 5, when the standard would have been to stop sampling by the end of year 4.
5. Going dark: role of foundations and private donors after the R01 AI110964 was terminated (from April 2020)
5.1 Extension then Termination of R01 AI110964
When NIH grant 1R01 AI110964 matured in May 2019, it was extended into 2R01 AI110964. That 5-year extension had a geographical focus limited to China. Said otherwise, the previous geographical extension to Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam , Cambodia, Thailand, etc, applicable from June 2017 to end May 2019 (years 4 and 5 of 1R01 AI110964), was not carried over to the 2R01.
Then on April 24, 2020, the NIH terminated grant R01 AI110964. This was depicted at the time as an unjustified response to conspiracy theories:
The Trump administration abruptly cut off funding for a project studying how coronaviruses spread from bats to people after reports linked the work to a lab in Wuhan, China, at the center of conspiracy theories about the Covid-19 pandemic’s origins.
[source: Politico, April 27, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/27/trump-cuts-research-bat-human-virus-china-213076.]
5.2 Immediate reactions by Daszak
On April 28, 2020, only 4 days after the grant cancellation, Peter Daszak requested that viruses characterised under that R01 AI110964 grant shall not be made public [item 14]:
Then on 29 Apr 2020, Peter Dasak wrote a very clear statement of intention in an email to his grant manager (Erik Stemmy), and about 85 people:.
Dear All,
Just so we don’t get waylaid by this — I want to let you all know that NIH (not NIAID) wrote to us last week to abruptly terminate our R01, for ‘convenience’.
[..] My plan is to continue this work, unfunded for now, and to attend these meetings if you will all have me.Cheers,
Peter[source: Request-20–320.pdf, p.792],
In a further email in the chain, Dasza blames the NIH Office of Intramural and Extramural Research (Building 1) for his issues, and hopes to get the support of NIAID against the NIH to get his grant restarted.
5.3 The Answer: Going Private
The acknowledgement section of Latinne et al, published Aug 2020, states:
All work conducted by EcoHealth Alliance staff after April 24th 2020 was supported by generous funding from The Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust, Pamela Thye, The Wallace Fund, & an Anonymous Donor c/o Schwab Charitable.
[item 15]
This acknowledgement is actually common to many papers published by Peter Daszak after the termination of his 2R01 grant. See for instance this search.
A 2022 application for another EcoHealth Alliance grant has a convenient summary of the research support of Peter Daszak [item 16]:
From the two documents [items 15, 16], we can see that:
- The main funding to Peter Daszak around 2018–20 for bat research in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam first came from NIH grants R01 AI1120964 (2014–2019), rolled into R01 AI1120964 which was then cancelled on 24 April 2020 following the outbreak and increasing questioning about the possible role of the WIV, EcoHealth Alliance partners in China.
- After 24 Apr 2020, funding came from:
- The Samuel Freeman Charitable Trust.
- Some private donors: Pamela Thye (on the Board of Directors of EcoHealth Alliance) and an anonymous donor (c/o Schwab Charitable).
- The Wallace Research Foundation, with a 2-year grant (2020–2022), which we shall discuss in the next section.
- The Whitehead Foundation, another private foundation, with a 1-year grant (2020–2021), for which I could not get information (not even a 990-PF) beyond the the description in item 16.
This switch in funding is further confirmed in a tweet for Peter Daszak about his latest research for bat SARS-related coronaviruses in South-East Asia, in cooperation with the WIV, on the occasion of the publication of Cecilia A. Sánchez et al (2022), ‘A strategy to assess spillover risk of bat SARS-related coronaviruses in Southeast Asia’ [item 17].
5.3 The Wallace Research Foundation grant (2020–2022):
In July 2020, Peter Daszak started as PI on a non-public 2-year grant with the Wallace Research Foundation [item 18].
The WRF is a little-know independent non-profit foundation located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which, through its previous form (the ‘Wallace Genetic Foundation’, WGF), goes back to Henry Wallace, founder of the first commercial hybrid seed company, Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn Company, and later Vice President of the United States under Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Wallace Research Foundation funds a rather mixed portfolio of cultural, medical, technological and wildlife/ecological projects, in the US mostly (such as a Cave and Bat Conservation project with the Nature Conservancy), but also in Cambodia (with the Wildlife Alliance Inc), Belize and Mexico.
The WRF grant to EcoHealth Alliance is named ‘Mitigating the risk of coronavirus emergence via human-wildlife interactions in South-East Asia’.
This brief description is very much in line with the description (Specific Aim 1) of the requested South-East Asia geographical shift in section B.6 of the 2016 reporting: ‘Assessment of CoV spillover potential at high risk human-wildlife interfaces’.
Its goal is further detailed as being to ‘understand the human-wildlife interaction and wildlife trade policy; human behavioral risks for virus spillover; and the risks of bat coronaviruses emergence in Myanmar, Laos, and Viet Nam’.
That grant being from a private foundation, there is very little documentation of it. We nevertheless get some mention in the standard return fillings for 2020 and 2021, when EcoHealth Alliance received $250,000 each year, as per forms 990-PF (Return of Private Foundation) [item 19].
Note that there is another private foundation grant at that time, ‘Mitigating the risk of coronavirus emergence via human-wildlife interactions in Southeast Asia’ (2020–06–09 to 2021–06–08), from the Whitehead Foundation, for which I could not get any details.
6. Back to business: EHA post-outbreak grant R01 AI163118 (from July 2022)
6.1 Grant Details
The WRF grant finished on July 14, 2022, but was immediately followed by NIH R01 grant AI163118: ‘Analyzing the potential for future bat coronavirus emergence in Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam’.
That R01 AI163118 grant uses the PREDICT partner LBVD in Myanmar [item 20], while R01 AI110964 listed San Pya clinic as ‘ghost’ partner.
The R01 AI163118 covers essentially the very sampling and testing activities proposed under R01 AI110964, but only for these 3 countries and without the involvement of China.
Grant schedule:
- received for review: May 11, 2021
- proposed start: date July 1, 2022
- proposed end date: June 30, 2027
- actual start date: Sep 22, 2022
That NIH grant, which covers precisely the same countries as the Wallace grant, is for about $600,000 per year, to compare to the $250,000 p/y of the Wallace grant.
The Cognizant Federal Agency of NIH R01 AI163118 is the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy (contact: Sharon Gales), which is typical given the underlying DoD/DTRA implications of EHA activities.
The EcoHealth Alliance Senior Field Veterinarian in Myanmar under NIH R01 AI163118 is Marc Tran Valitutto [items 21, 22], who is also responsible for Field Biosafety. Marc Tran was previously involved in the PREDICT work in Myanmar with LBVD, a project which raised some contracting issues that are documented separately. For that PREDICT project, Marc Tran Valitutto was at the time being contracted and remunerated by PREDICT.
Compared to R01 AI110964, post-outbreak R01 AI163118 also included a lab-biosafety consultant (Paul Selleck — see R01AI163118-Daszak-PI-Full-Proposal.pdf, p.234–235, for more details).
6.2 Funding Restrictions
NIH R01 AI163118 also contains award restrictions that effectively prevent the drawing of awarded fund for LBVD (Myanmar), as well as other governmental foreign components in Myanmar and Laos until resolution of ‘administrative issues’.
Restriction: This award is being issued with funds for the foreign component(s) at National Health Laboratory, Livestock Breeding & Veterinary Department, Vet Medicine and Disease Control, and Yangon University of Distance Education; BURMA as well as, University of Health Sciences, Ministry of Health, and Dept. of Livestock and Fisheries, Ministry of Ag and Forest; LAOS.
No funds may be expended or drawn down in the Payment Management System for the foreign site pending the resolution of internal administrative issues. Once these issues have been resolved, this award may be revised to allow use of funding for the portion of the study originally planned for the foreign site.
[item 23]
footnotes:
[1]: The importance of northern Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam bordering Yunnan in its south, was also well explained in the PhD thesis of Aleksei Chmura, already at EcoHealth Alliance, ‘Evaluating Risks of Paramyxovirus and Coronavirus Emergence in China’, finalized in March 2017, and under the co-supervision of Peter Daszak of EHA.
[2]: The second author of Lacroix et al (2017) is Veasna Dong, from Institut Pasteur du Cambodge, which we have come across in part 2 in this series as the designated Cambodia in-country collaborator for EHA R01 grant AI110964. Vaesna Dong is also the lead-author of a 2021 paper describing the results of a bat sampling campaign in Cambodia, dating back to 2010, in which samples a novel SARS-CoV-2 related coronavirus was identified (named RshSTT200).
One of the co-authors on that 2021 paper (Hul et al, ‘A novel SARS-CoV-2 related coronavirus in bats from Cambodia’) is Alexandre Hassanin, from the Sorbonne University in Paris and a researcher in the “phylogenomics, phylodynamics and host-pathogen interactions” team of the Institute of Systematics, Evolution, Biodiversity at the National Museum of Natural History. He was part of that 2010 bats sampling campaign. Hassenin has made it very clear that he believes that a research accident is the most likely cause of the Covid-19 pandemic.
[3]: In a manner similar to Alexandre Hassanin, who was co-discoverer of the first relative of SARS-CoV-2 (in Cambodia), Marc Eloit, the discoverer of the closest relative of SARS-CoV-2 to date (in Laos), has made it very clear that he considers a research-related origin of SARS-CoV-2 as entirely possible, including via introduction of the furin cleavage site (FCS) via passaging in a lab.
The opinions of such experts involved in sampling key relatives of SARS-CoV-2 in South East Asia, shall disperse any erroneous conception that a research-related accident is a conspiracy theory.
[4]: A PhD thesis by Ning Wang [item a], finalized in June 2018, “Discovery of novel bat alphacoronaviruses and SARS-related coronavirus serological detection in human” (蝙蝠新型α冠状病毒的发现和SARS相关冠状病毒感染人群的血清学调查) was completed under the supervision of Shi Zhengli, of the WIV.
It mentions sampling in Louang Namtha province, Laos, as part of a 2006–16 campaign, most likely referring to the same sampling campaigns as his later paper Wang et al (2021).