that same year, wuhan scientists authored a paper on biosafety labs across china, warning in part that there was a lack of enough operable technical standards. several labs in wuhan handled bat coronaviruses. this is wuhan center for disease control. this is one of the labs within wuhan. inside, lower level biosafety labs that likewise evolved with the study of bats and coronaviruses. all the procedures that i saw happening over there would be the same as if in any other country that i ve worked in. dr. danielle anderson is the last and only foreign scientist who trained and worked in the wuhan institute of virology s bsl 4 labs. when she left wuhan in november of 2019, she had no inkling of the pandemic to come, no word of an illness spreading in wuhan,
no rumors of sickened workers. in fact she was planning to return in early 2020. you need to know the symptoms of that particular pathogen that you work with. and if you experience any of those symptoms, they need to be reported. she spoke to us from australia where she now works at the doherty institute in melbourne. with bsl 4 in particular, every day we have to take our temperature and our blood pressure. and it s recorded in a logbook. also at wiv, which is not go that s done everywhere, before i ever stepped foot in the lab i went to the hospital, had a blood sample taken, and that was stored. dr. anderson worked on ebola and nipa virus in wiv s bsl 4 labs and she attests to the high standards at that specific level. but again, it s not the bsl 4 that concerns dr. barak. it s coronavirus being worked on at lower biosafety level conditions like bsl 2.
international standard for coronaviruses, dr. barak sees bsl 2 is too risky. we do all our work under bsl 3 conditions. we wear portable breathing apparatuses with tieback suits so workers are protected from anything that might be in the laboratory. now the wuhan institute virology is best known for its world class bsl 4 lab which became fully operational in 2018. those labs handle the world s most dangerous microbes with no known cures or treatments. this laboratory will mainly be used for research on highly pathogenic infectious diseases for which there are currently no medicine or vaccines. but in the year that it opened, u.s. diplomats visited the lab and expressed their concerns. they told their washington colleagues if a lab accident happened at this lab it could cause an outbreak of a bat coronavirus pandemic.
vaccines or measles can be worked on. lab coats and gloves are worn and it s performed under a hood. eye protection and face shields are optional. some critics have likened bsl 2 conditions to a dental office. there are many more laboratory accidents or laboratory acquired infections bsl 2 compared to bsl 3. while there is no international bsl standard, he says bsl 2 as far too risky. we do all of the research in our lab on bat related coronaviruses under biological safety three enhanced conditions. we wear portable air breathing apparatuses with suits so workers are protected from anything that might be in the laboratory. now, the wuhan institute of virology is best known for its world class bsl 4 lab which became fully operational in 2018.