China to open first high security bio laboratory

China’s first high-security biosafety laboratory will be ready for use by December, in a move hailed as a “crucial” moment in the fight against pathogens such as the Ebola virus, officials said Tuesday.

According to AFP, the facility, which has been under construction since July 2011, has been billed as the first in China that will be equipped to handle Class 4 pathogens (P4) — dangerous viruses that pose a high risk of airborne person-to-person transmission, which can include haemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola, and others.

The laboratory in Wuhan, Hubei province, was built in cooperation with French bio-industrial firm Institut Merieux and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It joins just a handful of labs around the world cleared to handle the most highly pathogenic germs.

The Wuhan P4 laboratory comes “at a crucial moment”, said Institut Merieux president Alain Merieux in Beijing.

“Now we are all working side by side on Ebola,” he added, referring to French and Chinese efforts to address the crisis in affected African countries.