Security concern halted Wis. Ebola study - Boston.com

October 14, 2007

How the hell could a leading researcher of infectious diseases not know that Ebola research is limited to only bio-safety level 4 labs. For goodness sakes, I know that I’m not an epidemiologist. He must have been out of his mind to be working on Ebola in bio-safety level 3 conditions.

Just in case you all haven’t read stacks of books about Ebola, the ever-useful wikipedia explains the four bio-safety levels (BL). Ebola has been classified as BL 4 since it was discovered. Since it’s highly infections and very deadly and there is no known cure and not much treatment for it. (Treating a person infected with Ebola is quite tricky. Mainly because once a person presents symptoms of Ebola infection, it will only be 7 to 14 days until they die from it. Hard to treat something that kills so quickly.)

The US doesn’t have many BL 4 equipped labs. Wikipedia claims that we have at least eight BL 4 facilities and, when I first got interested in Ebola, there were less than four BL 4 labs in the US.

As always, if you ever want to learn more about Ebola, I suggest starting with the phenomenal book that jump started my Ebola obsession. The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston. I’m so in love with that book. It integrates the history of Ebola with current (at the time) research being done on the virus. One of the most suspenseful scenes that I’ve ever read is when Preston writes about a researcher (Nancy Jaax) who makes a mistake in the BL 4 lab while working with Ebola.

Category Posted in Ebola