Ultra-secure Lab In Gabon Equipped For Ebola Studies

Franceville, Gabon, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Jun, 2018 ) :At a research facility in Gabon, one isolated building stands behind an electrified fence, under round-the-clock scrutiny by video cameras. The locked-down P4 lab is built to handle the world's most dangerous viruses, including Ebola.

"Only four people, three researchers and a technician, are authorised to go inside the P4," said virologist Illich Mombo, who is in charge of the lab, one of only two in all of Africa that is authorised to handle deadly Ebola, Marburg and Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever viruses. The other is in Johannesburg.

The P4 was put up 800 metres (half a mile) distant from older buildings of the Franceville International Centre for Medical Research (CIRMF), in large grounds on the outskirts of Franceville, the chief city in the southeastern Haut-Ogooue province.

Filming the ultra-high-security lab or even taking photos is banned and the handful of people allowed inside have security badges. Backup power plants ensure an uninterruptable electricity supply. "Even the air that we breathe is filtered," Mombo explains.

When he goes into the P4 lab to work on a sample of suspect virus such as Ebola -- which has claimed 28 lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during an outbreak in the past six weeks -- Mombo wears a head-to-foot biohazard suit.

The special clothing is destroyed as soon as he has finished. Draconian measures are in force to prevent any risk of contamination, with potentially disastrous effects.