Whether Covid escaped from a lab or not, itâs time to talk about biosecurity
T he debate on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic has recently focused on the potential for the Sars-CoV-2 virus to have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, located in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the centre of the pandemic. This institute houses a maximum containment laboratory, more commonly known as a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) lab, designed to handle dangerous pathogens for which there are no available treatments or vaccines.
The controversy has brought renewed attention to biosafety, biosecurity, âgain-of-functionâ and other âdual-useâ research, along with consideration of the level of oversight that such labs should be operating under. Although this debate has become polarised and politicised, we should not lose sight of the importance of these issues, even if it turns out this lab had nothing to do with the emergence of the novel coronavirus. Concerns about whether labs are conducting their research safely, securely and responsibly are not new, or of relevance solely to labs in China â as revealed by a comprehensive study on global BSL-4 labs that we recently completed.
Based on open-source research, we have compiled a list of BSL-4 labs around the world in the form of an interactive website at globalbiolabs.org. Our research identified nearly 60 BSL-4 labs in operation, under construction or planned across 23 countries, including seven in the UK. Given recent concerns about biosafety, it is worth noting that three-quarters of these labs are located in urban areas. More than half are government-run, public health institutions. The remaining labs are evenly split between being housed at universities and located at government agencies involved in biodefence, with a small number of private labs in operation as well. Regardless of who runs them, they are used either to diagnose infections with highly lethal and transmissible pathogens, or conduct research on such pathogens to develop new medical countermeasures and diagnostics tests or to improve our scientific understanding of how these pathogens work.
Our study also revealed that there was significant room for improvement in the policies in place to ensure that these labs were operated safely, securely and responsibly. Only about one-quarter of the countries with BSL-4 labs received high scores for biosafety and biosecurity â as measured by the Nuclear Threat Initiativeâs Global Health Security Index. This index measures whether countries have the requisite legal and institutional components of national biosafety and biosecurity oversight systems. We also found that only three countries with BSL-4 labs have national policies for the oversight of dual-use research. The vast majority of countries with BSL-4 labs do not conduct oversight of the type of gain-of-function research that has been a central feature in the debate on Covid-19âs origin. So even if you do not believe that the current pandemic was the result of a gain-of-function experiment gone wrong, it doesnât mean that this type of work couldnât be the source of the next pandemic.
We expect more countries to build these labs in the wake of Covid-19 as part of a renewed emphasis on pandemic preparedness and response. In addition, gain-of-function research with coronaviruses, and other zoonotic pathogens with pandemic potential, is likely to increase as scientists seek to better understand these viruses and to assess the risk they pose of jumping from animals to humans or becoming transmissible between humans.
These trends make it increasingly urgent to put in place higher national and international standards to address the safety and security risks of working with dangerous pathogens. A good place to start would be for BSL-4 labs, and other labs that conduct research with hazardous pathogens, to adopt the recently developed international standard for biorisk management known as ISO 35001. This standard does not require any expensive hardware upgrades. Rather, it requires the establishment of a management system designed to identify safety and security risks, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the labâs mitigation measures. This is low-hanging fruit since the standard has already been negotiated, is sitting on the shelf and can be adopted relatively quickly.
At a national level, countries with BSL-4 labs should have whole-of-government systems that can conduct multidisciplinary risk assessments of proposed research for safety, security and dual-use activities, such as certain gain-of-function research, that have significant potential to be repurposed to cause harm. These countries should also continue providing complete, regular and transparent reporting under international agreements that they are party to, such as the biological weapons convention and UN security council resolution 1540.
At the international level, we recommend that structures be put in place to systematically oversee maximum containment facilities. The World Health Organization (WHO) could be made directly responsible for this oversight, in much the same way that it conducts biennial biosafety and biosecurity inspections of the two labs in the United States and Russia that store the remaining samples of the variola virus that causes smallpox. Alternatively, the WHO could organise regular biorisk management peer review exercises by international teams of government and non-government experts. Another option would be to expand the membership and mission of the International Experts Group of Biosafety and Biosecurity Regulators, which currently serves as an information-sharing forum for national regulatory authorities from 11 countries, to validate that labs in members states are implementing ISO 35001.
In addition to oversight structures of maximum containment laboratories, there is also a need for the WHO to develop internationally recognised guidelines to govern dual-use research and the handling of potential pandemic pathogens.
Covid-19 was a wake-up call about the vulnerabilities of our modern, globalised societies to a novel respiratory virus. Preventing the next pandemic should be a priority for all countries. Ensuring that research with hazardous pathogens, especially those with potential pandemic properties, is conducted safely, securely and responsibly must be a key element of that strategy.
Dr Gregory D Koblentz is an associate professor and Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University and a member of the scientist working group on chemical and biological weapons at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC. Dr Filippa Lentzos is senior lecturer in science and international security and co-director of the Centre for Science and Security Studies at Kingâs College London