In the US, the health department and the Centers for Disease Control jointly monitor the use of 67 different types of toxins and other potentially dangerous materials. Their latest report found that in the US in 2019, such substances were lost 13 times and accidentally released 219 times. This led to over 1,000 people undergoing medical assessments, and some taking preventive drugs. None however contracted identified illnesses as a result.
In 2004, nine people were infected with Sars and one person died after two researchers were separately exposed to the virus while working at the Chinese Institute of Virology in Beijing. In November 2019, just a month before the first confirmed case of Covid-19, more than 6,000 people in north-west China were infected with brucellosis, a bacterial disease with flu-like symptoms, after a leak at a vaccine plant.
China has been particularly keen to build more maximum-security labs in order to strengthen its scientific research capacity. Bai Chunli, the former president of the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Sciences, wrote an article last year warning of the country’s “clear shortcomings” in its number of high-level biosafety labs in comparison with the US. Guangdong province announced in May that it was planning to build between 25 to 30 biosafety level three labs and one BSL-4 lab, in the next five years.
No comments:
Post a Comment