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Chinese Biosafety Lab Equipped to Handle Ebola to Be Ready in December: Reports

© Fotolia / motorlka China's first high-security biosafety laboratory equipped to handle Class 4 pathogens (P4), such as the deadly Ebola virus, is scheduled for use by December.
China's first high-security biosafety laboratory equipped to handle Class 4 pathogens (P4), such as the deadly Ebola virus, is scheduled for use by December. - Sputnik International
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China's first high-security biosafety laboratory equipped to handle Class 4 pathogens (P4), such as the deadly Ebola virus, is scheduled for use by December, the South China Morning Post reported Wednesday.

MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) - China's first high-security biosafety laboratory equipped to handle Class 4 pathogens (P4), such as the deadly Ebola virus, is scheduled for use by December, the South China Morning Post reported Wednesday.

The development and opening of the lab comes "at a crucial moment," said Institut Merieux president Alain Merieux as quoted by the newspaper.

The P4 laboratory in Wuhan, Hubei province began construction in July 2011, as a joint project including the French bio-industrial firm, Institut Merieux, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Merieux hopes the lab can aid in the current Ebola epidemic in West Africa, according to the South China Morning Post.

"Now we are all working side by side on Ebola," the institute's president was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Class 4 pathogens include viruses which pose a high risk to laboratory workers due to its dangerous human-to-human transmission. Viruses in this group usually have no effective treatments. Class 4 pathogens include smallpox, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, filoviruses, and the Ebola virus.

The current Ebola epidemic plaguing West Africa is the history's worst outbreak of the hemorrhagic virus. The epidemic began in southern Guinea at the end of 2013 and consequently spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. A separate outbreak is taking place in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The Ebola outbreak has already killed more than 3,000 people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a report in mid-September stating that the Ebola death toll could reach up to 1.4 million by January 2015 should current trends continue.

Although there is no approved vaccine for the virus at the moment, countries such as Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan are working on medications.

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