Japan is Hoarding Viruses to Fight Bioterrorism at the 2020 Olympics
Original article from WIRED by , 2019
As long as the current outbreak of Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo persists, there is a risk it could spread to another country. Since it was first declared in August 2018, more than 2,000 people have died, including a young girl in Uganda. But fears of this fatal illness reach beyond the African continent: Japan, which is expecting an influx of 600,000 overseas visitors for the Olympic Games next summer, has a plan to deal with a potential outbreak.
The Japanese National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) in Tokyo has begun tests on live viruses of Ebola and four other types of haemorrhagic fever – Marburg, Lassa, Crimean-Congo and South American – in an attempt to make diagnoses more accurate and improve detection methods. It is the first time these five pathogens have been deliberately brought into the island nation.
To obtain the most dangerous pathogens currently known to humans, the country had to upgrade its laboratory to the highest biosafety level (BSL-4) – which requires 24/7 high-security buildings with negative air pressure to ensure air can enter but not leave as well as bulky, astronaut-like protective suits with their own air supply, chemical showers, and heavy duty air filters. The NIID lab in the western suburbs of Tokyo was built in 1981 to handle hazardous viruses but wasn’t allowed to house infectious BSL-4 pathogens until 2015 because local residents feared a potential outbreak if containment protocols failed. But why did Japan wait until less than a year before the 2020 Olympics to start work on some of the world’s most infectious diseases?
When it comes to the ability to study infectious pathogens, Japan has lagged behind other nations. The US, Europe, Russia and Australia have around 50 maximum-security labs in operation or under construction between them, while China is building its own network of at least five facilities.