EcoHealth, nonprofit at center of lab-leak theory, receives $3 million federal grant for viral study

EcoHealth Alliance, the research nonprofit at the center of years' worth of lab-leak theories regarding the origin of COVID-19, has received another multimillion-dollar government grant to carry out research, federal records indicate. 

An entry on USASpending.gov shows EcoHealth being awarded a $3.0 million Department of Defense grant in order to facilitate "reducing the threat of viral spillover from wildlife in the Philippines." 

The grant began last month and is set to last until December of 2025, the records show. 

The group was the center of controversy last fall when it received another government grant to allow it to continue the study of bat coronaviruses in Asia. 

EcoHealth has come under sustained criticism for its funneling of government grant money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a coronavirus research lab in Wuhan, China, located just several miles from the first known public outbreak of COVID-19. 

Speculation has swirled as to whether the WIV was responsible for accidentally releasing the virus, as well as what kinds of research the EcoHealth-backed grant money funded at the facility.