A plague researcher dies in Russia

A woman died last week near a Russian facility studying plague, the disease that killed roughly half of Europe's population during the worst outbreak in the thirteen hundreds.

Russia has a history of bioweapon work

Russia has a long history of bioweapon experimentation, raising immediate concerns about whether this death signals another lab leak like the COVID-19 pandemic many believe started in a Chinese laboratory.

A lab leak is unlikely but possible

A global outbreak from this incident is unlikely because the facility is very isolated, plague is not nearly as infectious as COVID, and it is easily treated if caught early. But human error remains a serious risk.

The worker may have broken a test tube

Local reporting suggests the worker may have been infected after breaking a test tube, showing that simple accidents at highly secure labs can put people's lives at risk.

More dangerous labs are being built

Since the pandemic, there has been a dramatic uptick in facilities being built to handle the most dangerous pathogens in existence, even as oversight of these sites remains weak.

BSL-4 labs are multiplying worldwide

In the late nineteen nineties there were fewer than ten BSL-4 labs in the world. By the late twenty tens there were almost forty. By twenty twenty-three, ten more had been completed or were in the works.

Developing countries want their own labs

Developing countries realized during COVID they could not depend on wealthier nations to prioritize their needs. India alone is planning four new BSL-4 facilities. At least five countries including Brazil, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Spain have started building or recently opened their first BSL-4 lab.

New labs lack experience and oversight

This construction is happening in places with less institutional experience doing this kind of work, where government oversight and stability have been weaker, raising concerns about whether appropriate biosafety and biosecurity management systems are in place.

“The more facilities that are working on this raises concerns about whether all this work is necessary. And do they have the appropriate biosafety and biosecurity management systems in place?”

Most labs are in city centers

About seventy-five percent of existing operational BSL-4 labs in the world are located in city centers, with at least fifty thousand people living within two point five miles of the lab, where dense populations could exacerbate the impact of an accidental release.

Global oversight has collapsed

There is no global organization that inspects or regulates these sites. The International Experts Group of Biosafety and Biosecurity Regulators has gone defunct. Only one of twenty-seven countries with a BSL-4 lab has comprehensive national legislation regulating dual-use gain-of-function research.

The US has withdrawn from global health

The US, once the world's public health leader, has pulled out of the World Health Organization and cut funding for federal agencies responsible for overseeing biosecurity facilities, leaving everyone more vulnerable.

We cannot verify what is happening

Even now it can be hard to be sure what is happening in Siberia. Our only sources of information are a Russian government prone to withholding and distorting information and local news reports that are difficult to verify.

Gregory Koblentz warns of rollback

Gregory Koblentz, who studies global biosecurity at George Mason University and co-founded the Global BioLabs project, says we are rolling back progress made after COVID in ways that will have long-term effects on our ability to respond to any outbreak.

“We are rolling back any progress we made post-Covid, in ways that are going to have long-term effects on our ability to respond to any kind of outbreak.”

Dangerous research has legitimate purposes

Scientists study dangerous pathogens to prepare for the next pandemic and better understand how viruses function so we can beat them back quickly. But the public needs a more rational conversation about the risks and benefits of this work.

“The real question is: 'What are the risks and what are the benefits?'”

Plague is still endemic in Russia

The reason Russia has a Siberian lab dedicated to plague research is because plague is still endemic in Russia. The dangerous pathogens are already there. The question is how to study them safely and securely.

Labs need better safety protocols

Individual labs should adopt new safety protocols from the International Organization for Standardization introduced shortly before the pandemic. Countries building new facilities must develop strong oversight standards at the same time, addressing inspection and maintenance as equally important.

An international biosecurity agency is needed

Ideally the world would have an international mechanism for auditing these sites, something like an International Atomic Energy Agency but for biosecurity, with more transparent debates about what research is truly important.

US leadership is essential to recovery

Better worldwide biosecurity will likely require the US once again becoming a global health leader. The withdrawal from multinational groups and cuts to government science funding have left everyone more vulnerable to biosecurity catastrophe.

“Our level of preparedness for an outbreak, whether it is a lab accident or a natural outbreak of plague or anything else has been dramatically reduced in the last two years.”