By MEGGIE I. FOSTER
Assistant Editor INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — On Thursday, July 26, Indiana’s Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab (ADDL) announced they would build a $30 million dollar agricultural laboratory designed for the research and diagnosis of deadly biological agents should they make their way to the Hoosier state.
The BSL-3 (Biosafety Laboratory Level 3) research facility will serve as a state-of-the-art laboratory and allow Indiana’s state animal disease diagnosticians to research, hazardous biological agents or in the worst-case scenario, an animal or human health disease outbreak in Indiana, said Leon Thacker, a Purdue University veterinary pathologist and director of ADDL, located on the Purdue campus in West Lafayette, Ind.
“The only way to explain why you couldn’t handle an outbreak is to explain that you weren’t prepared for it,” said Thacker. “We’re not going to sit there and wait for a catastrophe, this facility is going to be here for us to research and prepare.”
In order to determine the need for this elite research facility, the state obtained a list from the Department of Human and Health Services and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, identifying agents that could “come to the state of Indiana,” said Thacker. With a list of hundreds of deadly and hazardous biological agents, including viruses such as Avian influenza, foot and mouth and anthracis, state officials were able to determine the critical need of a facility that could prevent or treat a disease outbreak in the state.
Examples of organisms that could be studied in the BSL-3 research laboratory include the Ebola virus, Monkeypox, Saxitoxin-exodus, South American hemorrhagic fever virus, African swine fever virus, Avian influenza, Classic swine fever, Foot and mouth virus, Newcastle disease virus, Bacillus anthracis, Brucella, Brucellosis, Cocciodies, Q fever and Venezelan equine toxin - to name a few.
In addition to testing agents deadly to the animal population, the new laboratory will test several viruses and agents that are also hazardous to the human population, according to Thacker. In other words, the BSL-3 laboratory will include a more stringent BSL-3-Agriculture (BSL-3-Ag) containment space. This type of space requires a higher level of containment and specialized air and water filtration system, offering the capability to safely test for numerous highly infectious human and animal disease agents.
The BSL-3 laboratory will also feature a necropsy, meaning an area to examine and dissect diseased animals following death, a unique layout and transportation area that will “seal up like a submarine.”
“There will be no air escape in certain areas of this new laboratory, except for the air filtration system,” explained Thacker.
In the new facility, a team of researchers will work at the highest safety level recommended for the safe handling of biothreat agents, he added. In addition to a highly trained and biosecure staff, the facility will have extremely restricted access and an engineering system designed to control ventilation barriers, minimizing the risk of exposure to the public and the environment.
The building will also don an elite water filtration system where all waste water will be collected in a basement container cell, inactivated and sterilized before being released into the city sewer system. While a shower-in to the research rooms is only the beginning of the biosecurity measures required in this facility, the building will also need to pass a “pressure test” before it can be used to test for hazardous agents.
“We will have a team of skilled contractors and architects who will have to know what they’re doing when they are designing and building this lab,” said Thacker. “Once the facility is built, they (contractors) will put so much pressure in it, hold it for several minutes, in order to find where the holes are for the air to escape. There can be absolutely no air escape from specific rooms in this laboratory.”
The new agriculture and public health laboratory is expected to be built in 2008 and ready for its one time open house sometime in 2009, according to Thacker.
The facility, which will be built on the southeast corner of the existing ADDL facility in West Lafayette, will be funded by the state of Indiana and maintained by Purdue University.
The announcement was made during the late July Board of Animal Health’s quarterly meeting in downtown Indianapolis.
This farm news was published in the Aug. 1, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
