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Science AAAS
doi: 10.1126/science.zk152vx
26 JUN 2024 1:55 PM ET
BY MEREDITH WADMAN
In a low, gray building nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Colorado State University (CSU) is building an unprecedented resource for scientists: a facility housing two bat species that are natural reservoirs of coronaviruses and other viruses that could trip off a pandemic. Funded by CSU and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nascent vivarium, slated to open in February 2025, will provide live bats and their tissue to high–biosafety-level (BSL) labs at CSU and around the country. There, teams will probe, among other things, how the bats live happily with viruses that are deadly to humans.
... The 1022-square-meter vivarium and lab facility has faced opposition and road blocks. CSU had subcontracted with the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) to capture the bats in Bangladesh, but the group’s access to federal funding was suspended last month after years of controversy over whether SARS-CoV-2 emerged from bat virus research by EHA subcontractors at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And the CSU project has been publicly assailed by both local residents and the White Coat Waste Project, a Washington, D.C.–based advocacy group that opposes animal experimentation. It claims the facility and the labs it will serve risk releasing pathogens that could spark a pandemic....
Nationwide in 2022, CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture received mandatory reports of six losses and 170 accidental releases of pathogens or toxins that pose a threat to humans, animals, or plants; 595 people with occupational exposures were medically assessed although none became ill. CSU records obtained by White Coat Waste show more than 60 biosafety incidents at the university between early 2020 and September 2023. They included improper storage of infected mouse carcasses in a BSL-3 freezer; a worker who contracted Zika after handling infected mosquitoes; and employees being bitten by bats, SARS-CoV-2–infected hamsters, rabies-infected cats, and tuberculosis-infected mice....
Correction, 26 June, 4:50 p.m.: This article has been corrected to note that the construction of the bat vivarium at CSU is being funded by the National Institutes of Health. The funding for capturing and quarantining the bats to stock the vivarium is being provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
https://www.science.org/content/article/colorado-bat-facility-support-virus-studies-sparks-outbreak-fears#:~:text=In%20a%20low%2C%20gray%20building,co uld%20trip%20off%20a%20pandemic.
doi: 10.1126/science.zk152vx
26 JUN 2024 1:55 PM ET
BY MEREDITH WADMAN
In a low, gray building nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Colorado State University (CSU) is building an unprecedented resource for scientists: a facility housing two bat species that are natural reservoirs of coronaviruses and other viruses that could trip off a pandemic. Funded by CSU and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nascent vivarium, slated to open in February 2025, will provide live bats and their tissue to high–biosafety-level (BSL) labs at CSU and around the country. There, teams will probe, among other things, how the bats live happily with viruses that are deadly to humans.
... The 1022-square-meter vivarium and lab facility has faced opposition and road blocks. CSU had subcontracted with the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance (EHA) to capture the bats in Bangladesh, but the group’s access to federal funding was suspended last month after years of controversy over whether SARS-CoV-2 emerged from bat virus research by EHA subcontractors at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. And the CSU project has been publicly assailed by both local residents and the White Coat Waste Project, a Washington, D.C.–based advocacy group that opposes animal experimentation. It claims the facility and the labs it will serve risk releasing pathogens that could spark a pandemic....
Nationwide in 2022, CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture received mandatory reports of six losses and 170 accidental releases of pathogens or toxins that pose a threat to humans, animals, or plants; 595 people with occupational exposures were medically assessed although none became ill. CSU records obtained by White Coat Waste show more than 60 biosafety incidents at the university between early 2020 and September 2023. They included improper storage of infected mouse carcasses in a BSL-3 freezer; a worker who contracted Zika after handling infected mosquitoes; and employees being bitten by bats, SARS-CoV-2–infected hamsters, rabies-infected cats, and tuberculosis-infected mice....
Correction, 26 June, 4:50 p.m.: This article has been corrected to note that the construction of the bat vivarium at CSU is being funded by the National Institutes of Health. The funding for capturing and quarantining the bats to stock the vivarium is being provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
https://www.science.org/content/article/colorado-bat-facility-support-virus-studies-sparks-outbreak-fears#:~:text=In%20a%20low%2C%20gray%20building,co uld%20trip%20off%20a%20pandemic.