Expansion planned for Winnipeg microbiology lab
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/07/2017 (2444 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Emerging deadly pathogens have made the world such a risky place that Ottawa has ordered a 34 per cent expansion of the highest-level containment laboratory at Winnipeg’s microbiology facility.
“We need to be prepared for the emergence of other diseases. It addresses the very real risks to our world,” federal Health Minister Jane Philpott declared at a news conference at the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health on Arlington Street Thursday.
Ottawa will spend $5 million upgrading existing level-3 labs to the maximum level-4, work so intricate and painstaking that the 439-square feet laboratory won’t be ready until 2020.
Philpott said Canada needs greater space to deal with such deadly pathogens as Ebola, avian influenza, and lassa fever.
“This is one of a rare type of lab around the world,” and still the only one combining both human and animal pathogens, the minister said: “There is no risk to the community.”
As deadly as the pathogens are, the lab has a great track record of safety, she said. “The work here is to the highest international standards.”
David Safronetz, the chief of special pathogens, said that there are not necessarily a lot of new diseases appearing. “åWe’re getting a better idea how to detect them,” and identifying more, he said.
For security reasons, Safronetz could not talk about how suspected samples of pathogens get to the lab, but the international emergency response assistance program has the same level of containment in transporting materials as the Arlington facility has in studying them.
Safronetz said that the changes that have to be made to the existing level-3 space are so complex and exacting that it will be three years before they’re ready for use.
“This is a very exciting time for our program,” he said.
Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer with the Public Health Agency of Canada, said that expanding level-4 “laboratory space vastly increases our capacity to investigate, test, and research the most deadly of infectious diseases.”
nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca