A massive National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) pandemic-preparedness program focused in part on hantaviruses was already actively underway—and had just achieved unprecedented structural and vaccine-platform mapping of Andes hantavirus—before the highly publicized 2026 international Andes hantavirus outbreak ordeal emerged.
The federally funded initiative, called PROVIDENT (“Prepositioning Optimized Strategies for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics against Diverse Emerging Infectious Threats”), officially began in September 2024 and remains active through June 2029, according to NIH RePORTER documents.
The project is run by Dr. Kartik Chandran, a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Department of Microbiology & Immunology.
Importantly, the project is not a small short-term grant.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine announced in September 2024 that the consortium received a:
“five-year, $14 million per year grant”
That places the total projected funding for the program at roughly $70 million over its active lifespan.
Hellbound and Down 