Reuters in March 2022 reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged Ukraine to destroy high-threat pathogens kept in the country’s laboratories to avoid “any possible spillage” that may lead to disease transmission, according to an email response from the UN agency to Reuters.
According to biosecurity experts, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the chance of disease-causing pathogens escaping from labs if such facilities are destroyed.
The US, the EU and the WHO have offered support to the labs in the country.
June 2010, U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar congratulated the opening of the Interim Central Reference Laboratory (ICRL) in Odessa, Ukraine, announcing that it will be instrumental in researching dangerous pathogens used by bioterrorists. Lugar said plans for the facility began in 2005 when he and then Senator Barack Obama entered a partnership with Ukrainian officials. Lugar and Obama also helped coordinate efforts between the U.S and Ukrainian researchers that year in an effort to study and help prevent avian flu.(source web archives)
U.S. cooperation with Ukraine under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program was expanded with an agreement to use U.S. CTR funds to improve security for pathogens stored at biological research and health facilities in the former Soviet republic.
” The level-3 bio-safety lab, which is the first built under the expanded authority of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, will be used to study anthrax, tularemia and Q fever as well as other dangerous pathogens.”
March 08,2022- Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Under-Secretary of State for Ukraine Victoria Nuland equivocated in her answer to a question by Florida’s Republican Senator Marco Rubio about whether Ukraine has chemical or biological weapons.
Meanwhile May 13, UN released a press and stated that they were unaware of Any Biological Weapons Programmes in Ukraine when the Russian Federation alleged the existence of such weapons.
The question remains, what is the purpose of these biological research labs ?
One thought on “What’s behind Ukraine’s BioLabs ?”
Nothing is ever as it seems. We must dig deeper into history. Position may be important, too. The basic W-questions are always helpful: What? Who? Where? Why? When?
According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and as stated on the NIH National library of medicine, there are over 4,000 registered microbiological laboratories in Ukraine.
According to the
Nothing is ever as it seems.
We must dig deeper into history.
Position may be important, too.
The basic W-questions are always helpful: What? Who? Where? Why? When?