Chinese scientist with reported ties to USAID finds new bat coronavirus that could infect humans like COVID

Chinese scientists have said that they discovered a new bat coronavirus that could infect humans in the same manner as the virus that causes COVID-19. The lead scientist in the new study has reported links to USAID.

According to a report from the South China Morning Post, the researchers are from the Guangzhou Laboratory, the Guangzhou Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University, and the infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The lead scientist in the new bat coronavirus study reportedly had prior financial ties to the embattled United States Agency for International Development.

The new infectious disease is called HKU5-CoV-2. The new coronavirus was first identified in the Japanese pipistrelle bat in Hong Kong.

HKU5-CoV-2 is a coronavirus that is part of the merbecovirus subgenus, which also includes the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome.

Researchers claim that HKU5-CoV-2 uses the ACE2 receptor to infect organisms. The ACE2 receptor is the same receptor used by SARS-CoV-2 to infect human cells.

“We report the discovery and isolation of a distinct lineage (lineage 2) of HKU5-CoV, which can utilize not only bat ACE2 but also human ACE2 and various mammalian ACE2 orthologs,” the study said.

The researchers wrote, “Authentic HKU5-CoV-2 infected human ACE2-expressing cell lines and human respiratory and enteric organoids. This study reveals a distinct lineage of HKU5-CoVs in bats that efficiently use human ACE2 and underscores their potential zoonotic risk.”

“Bat merbecoviruses, which are phylogenetically related to MERS-CoV, pose a high risk of spillover to humans, either through direct transmission or facilitated by intermediate hosts,” the scientists stated.

The researchers from China added, “The potential human spillover risk of animal merbecoviruses remains to be investigated.”

The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Cell on Tuesday.

The study was led by Shi Zhengli — a leading virologist who had been the director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Zhengli is often dubbed the “bat woman” by her colleagues because of her extensive research on bat coronaviruses since 2004, including virus-hunting expeditions in bat caves.

The World Society for Virology said of Zhengli, “Her group has discovered diverse novel viruses/virus antibodies in bats, including SARS-like coronaviruses, adenoviruses, adeno-associated viruses, circoviruses, paramyxoviruses and filoviruses in China.”

The lead scientist in the new bat coronavirus study reportedly had prior financial ties to the embattled United States Agency for International Development.

A 2021 article in Vanity Fair noted: “Shi Zhengli herself listed U.S. government grant support of more than $1.2 million on her curriculum vitae: $665,000 from the NIH between 2014 and 2019; and $559,500 over the same period from USAID. At least some of those funds were routed through EcoHealth Alliance.”

According to 990 tax exemption forms it filed in 2018 with the New York state attorney general’s Charities Bureau, EcoHealth Alliance received as much as $15 million a year in grant money from federal agencies, including the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and USAID.

The article spotlighted emails obtained by a Freedom of Information request, including one sent by Peter Daszak, a zoologist and former president of EcoHealth Alliance. The email showed that Zhengli allegedly carried out potentially dangerous gain-of-function experiments.

Under the subject line, “No need for you to sign the ‘Statement’ Ralph!!,” he wrote to two scientists, including UNC’s Dr. Ralph Baric, who had collaborated with Shi Zhengli on the gain-of-function study that created a coronavirus capable of infecting human cells: “you, me and him should not sign this statement, so it has some distance from us and therefore doesn’t work in a counterproductive way.” Daszak added, “We’ll then put it out in a way that doesn’t link it back to our collaboration so we maximize an independent voice.”

During a House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing in March 2023, former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield said he believes American tax dollars funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) asked Redfield, “Is it likely that American tax dollars funded the gain-of-function research that created this virus?”

Redfield replied, “I think it did, not only from NIH, but from the State Department, USAID, and DOD.”

Zhengli has gone on record to say that she does not believe in the lab-leak theory that COVID-19 came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — a biosafety level-4 lab, which requires the highest level of safety protocols and equipment because of the study of high-consequence biological agents.

Blaze News reported in July 2021 that Zhengli purportedly had “collaborated with two military scientists on coronavirus work, one of whom is now deceased under unknown circumstances.”

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