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Covid Lab Leak Fight Obscures the Global Rise of High-Security Biolabs

There are more and more high-containment labs being built around the world — and no universal agreement on how to regulate or monitor them

China, home to three BSL-4 labs and one that’s planned, has been fighting allegations that the pandemic started because of a leak at that Wuhan lab for years now. 

China, home to three BSL-4 labs and one that’s planned, has been fighting allegations that the pandemic started because of a leak at that Wuhan lab for years now. 

Photographer: Ng Han Guan/AP Photo 

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The number of high-containment labs around the world conducting potentially risky scientific research is surging, despite a lack of global agreement on how to make sure they're safe.

There are 69 so-called Biosafety Level 4, or BSL-4, facilities designed to study dangerous infectious pathogens in operation, under construction or planned worldwide, according to Global Biolabs, a tracking project run out of King’s College London and George Mason University in Virginia. About a decade ago, there were only 25.