BIOSECURITYWarning: Prospecting for Unknown Viruses Risks a Deadly Outbreak

In 2018, a lab on the Bangkok, Thailand campus of Chulalongkorn University — a lab built specifically to handle dangerous pathogens — was shut down for months because of mechanical failures, including a breakdown in a ventilation system which guards against leaks of airborne microbes. Then the Washington Post reports, in a catastrophe that began in Wuhan, a Chinese city 1,500 miles away, the coronavirus pandemic swept the globe, becoming a scary case study in how a single virus of uncertain origin can spread exponentially.

The Post continues:

In spring 2021, the Thai team’s leader pulled the plug, deciding that the millions of dollars of U.S. research money for virus hunting did not justify the risk.

“To go on with this mission is very dangerous,” Thiravat Hemachudha, a university neurologist who supervised the expeditions, told The Washington Post. “Everyone should realize that this is hard to control, and the consequences are so big, globally.”

Three years after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a similar reckoning is underway among a growing number of scientists, biosecurity experts and policymakers. The global struggle with covid-19, caused by the novel coronavirus, has challenged conventional thinking about biosafety and risks, casting a critical light on widely accepted practices such as prospecting for unknown viruses.

In that feature article in thePost, David Willman and Joby Warrick discuss ongoing fears about the risks posed by seeking out viruses that may one day be able to spread in human populations, starting first with recounting concerns about research in Southeast Asia in the 2010s. They then write:

Three years after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, a similar reckoning is underway among a growing number of scientists, biosecurity experts and policymakers. The global struggle with covid-19, caused by the novel coronavirus, has challenged conventional thinking about biosafety and risks, casting a critical light on widely accepted practices such as prospecting for unknown viruses.

“A Post examination found that a two-decade, global expansion of risky research has outpaced measures to ensure the safety of the work and that the exact number of biocontainment labs handling dangerous pathogens worldwide, while unknown, is believed by experts to bein the thousands.

Pandora Reportnotes that they also feature Gregory Koblentz, director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University, and his work with the Global Biolabs project:

Global Biolabs, the advocacy group, found that nearly 1 in 10 BSL-4 labs operating in other countries score poorly in international rankings for lab safety. In some cases, labs were constructed without local regulations or meaningful oversight of the handling of dangerous pathogens, or “even a well-established culture of responsible research,” said Gregory Koblentz, a co-author of the Global Biolabs report and the director of the biodefense graduate program at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.

“Most countries lack the sophisticated controls needed to prevent dangerous viruses or bacteria from being misused or diverted for illicit purposes,” he said. “This is a major blind spot in global surveillance for future biological threats,” Koblentz said.”