The Wall Street Journal - 06.03.2020

A6| Friday, March 6, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

giene guidelines would be

prosecuted. A committee has

been set up to determine the

appropriate penalty, he said.

Mr. Namaki said checkpoints

will be established at roads

leading into and out of cities

and towns, with anyone display-

ing symptoms of the virus put

into quarantine for two weeks.

The impact of the coronavi-

rus on the higher echelons of

Iran’s political system has rein-

forced the need to strengthen

public health, some experts say.

“It may help to make the

state understand that drastic

measures are needed to tackle

this health crisis,” said Adnan

Tabatabai, chief executive of

the Germany-based Middle

East-focused Carpo think tank,

who was in Tehran when the vi-

rus began to take hold.

As the outbreak has spread

to nearly all of the country’s

provinces, some Iranian lead-

ers have appealed to a national

sense of unity. They have de-

cure of its kind: Biosafety

Level 4, or BSL-4, which

means maximum containment

of the kind of pathogens that

are deadliest to humans. “In-

fections caused by these mi-

crobes are frequently fatal and

without treatment or vac-

cines,” according to a CDC de-

scription of what belongs in

such a lab.

While noting that no inter-

national rules govern bio-

safety, the World Health Or-

ganization about two years ago

counted 54 high-containment

labs in 24 countries. Its list in-

cluded 31 operational BSL-4s,

plus 12 more in some stage of

construction, with China, Ivory

Coast, Saudi Arabia and South

Korea described as new en-

trants.

Modern BSL-4 labs, which

often have a national-defense

function and work with a na-

tion’s military, feature sealed

rooms, special ventilation and

rigid procedures for scientists,

who work in protective bubble

suits usually seen only in Hol-

lywood thrillers.

The one in Wuhan, China’s

first to handle human patho-

gens, was engineered by a mil-

itary contractor for the Peo-

ple’s Liberation Army and

certified domestically. It has

studied HIV, Ebola and now

Covid-19, the disease caused by

the coronavirus discovered in

the city.

James W. Le Duc, a former

CDC biosafety expert who runs

a biocontainment facility at

the University of Texas in Gal-

veston, says two of the Wuhan

institute’s scientists trained

with him, and his engineering

team visited China to advise

“how to drive the place and

keep it safe.”

Despite careful protocols,

accidents happen. The CDC

says that in 2014, tubes being

used in a study of live Ebola

virus in its Atlanta BSL-4 facil-

ity got mixed up and the

wrong ones were mistakenly

transferred to a less-secure

lab, though no one got sick.

The CDC says it developed

the world’s first BSL-4 facility

in a truck trailer in 1967 in re-

sponse to the emergence of

Marburg virus, a close cousin of

Ebola. Among the U.S.’s 10

BSL-4 labs designed to handle

microbes harmful to humans is

the CDC’s biggest yet, a $

million, 95,000-square-foot,

high-containment lab in Atlanta.

WORLD NEWS

TOKYO—Japan introduced

some of the strictest border

controls aimed at preventing

the spread of the new corona-

virus, imposing a two-week

quarantine on visitors from

China or South Korea.

The country’s close neigh-

bors typically account for about

half of all tourists to Japan.

Japan also said it would

ban visitor arrivals from re-

gions of South Korea and Iran

worst affected by the virus

and it said a planned April

visit by Chinese President Xi

Jinping would be postponed.

As the virus spreads, gov-

ernments are grappling with

whether to adopt tighter re-

strictions on people arriving

from foreign countries. The

U.S. has banned foreign na-

tionals coming from China and

is instructing arrivals from

Iran, Italy and South Korea to

observe a 14-day quarantine at

home after they enter the U.S.

China and South Korea have

the largest number of reported

cases of infection from the

new coronavirus, at more than

80,000 and more than 6,000,

respectively.

Japan also has more than

300 confirmed cases of infec-

tion from the virus, not count-

ing those infected on a cruise

ship docked at Yokohama.

In February, Japan barred

visitors from the two provinces

in China worst hit by the virus.

Under the new restrictions,

visitors arriving from other ar-

eas of China or South Korea

starting March 9 will be re-

quired to spend two weeks in a

medical or other government-

approved quarantine facility.

The requirement will continue

until at least the end of March.

The outright ban on arriv-

als from the worst-affected re-

gions of Iran and South Korea

begins on Saturday.

BYALASTAIRGALE

Japan Sets

Tougher

Border

Controls

ployed security forces to disin-

fect streets and the Basij para-

military militia to conduct

house-to-house testing.

“Today we are engaged in a

biological battle, but the coun-

try is resisting,” Maj. Gen. Hos-

sein Salami, commander of the

Revolutionary Guard, said on

Thursday, state news agency

IRNA reported.

Some Iranians have also

been hesitant to get tested,

out of fear of contracting the

virus in hospital. Others are

displaying, both online and

privately, contempt for their

leaders as they contract the

deadly virus. As a sign of the

derision with which some Ira-

nians view their leaders, some

have responded to officials

falling ill with mockery.

“But seriously, a virus that

first hits the Mullahs then the

officials is not a disaster, it’s a

blessing,” one message circu-

lated on social-media plat-

forms said. Another post on

Iran analyst with the Eurasia

Group, a political risk consult-

ing firm. “But this is perhaps

the government’s biggest test.”

A further 15 people have

died from the virus, bringing

the total to 107, health minis-

try spokesman Kianoush Jah-

anpour said on Thursday. Italy

and China are the only other

countries to record such a

high number of deaths.

The number of confirmed

cases in Iran also increased by

20% to 3,513 since Wednesday,

Mr. Jahanpour said, slowing

for a second consecutive day. It

is unclear whether that reflects

a slower spread of the virus.

Hospitals and clinics have

lacked test kits, nurses and pro-

tective masks. Many Iranians

have defied instructions to stay

at home and report symptoms.

Saeed Namaki, the deputy

health minister, on Thursday

announced a range of new

measures and said those who

hid symptoms or flouted hy-

Instagram compared the cha-

otic response of President

Hassan Rouhani’s government

to the virus to the dystopian

Mad Max movies.

In a widely watched ani-

mated video on Instagram, the

Tehran-based satirist Soroush

Rezaee depicted a boy getting

infected with coronavirus and

resorting to outlandish, super-

stitious practices to get cured.

The video mocked statements

from an Iranian cleric in Mash-

had who gave similar advice.

Parliament has been sus-

pended, but the impact of the

virus on the day-to-day running

of the country appears largely

unaffected and Iran is taking

steps to ensure the smooth

functioning of the government.

“The result of economic,

political, and health crises is

that the regime circles the

wagons tighter, limiting op-

portunity for dissent, which

risks groupthink and bad deci-

sion making,” Mr. Rome said.

Iran is struggling to contain
a virus that has infected
scores of officials, shaking the
confidence of ordinary Irani-
ans who have been reluctant
to follow guidance that could
help stem the epidemic.

Already under pressure
from U.S. sanctions and bouts
of domestic unrest, Iran’s lead-
ership is now buffeted by an
illness that has infected as
many as two dozen lawmakers,
a deputy health minister, a vice
president and a member of the
council advising the country’s
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, among others.
The coronavirus crisis
comes after years of crum-
bling confidence in the Iranian
government, which has been
unable to provide its people
with relief from the grueling
American sanctions imposed
after the Trump administra-
tion’s exit in 2018 from the in-
ternational nuclear deal.
Security forces have killed
hundreds as they suppressed a
series of economic protests in
recent years. Floods and earth-
quakes pummeled rural areas,
leaving the local population
complaining that they were
being neglected by the central
government. And in January,
following the U.S. killing of
Iranian top general Qassem
Soleimani, the Iranian military
mistakenly shot down a Ukrai-
nian airliner—and then tried
to cover up its responsibility.
“In a system that routinely
puts the interests of elites
above those of citizens, the ill-
ness of senior regime leaders
sends an alarming message to
the public about the govern-
ment’s capacity to handle this
crisis,” said Henry Rome, an

ByIsabel Coles

in Beirut and

Sune Engel Rasmussen

in London

Mistrust Hurts Iran’s Virus Fight

Crumbling confidence

in leadership comes as

many officials battle

their own infections

Soldiers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps distributed disinfectant to people in Tehran on Thursday in a bid to contain the outbreak.

ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK

SHANGHAI—Scientists at a

specialized Wuhan laboratory

have been at the forefront of

China’s response to its con-

tinuing coronavirus epidemic,

but are drawing attention to

risks associated with the ex-

panding global study of deadly

pathogens.

The Wuhan Institute of Vi-

rology contributed to China’s

fast identification this year of

the outbreak’s source as a pre-

viously unknown coronavirus. It

was a monumental achievement

for a government that aims to

rival the West in high technol-

ogy, including bioscience.

Yet, the institute’s location

at ground zero of the most in-

fectious epidemic in China’s

modern history has also made

it a target for peddlers of al-

ternate theories that humans

first contracted the virus as

the result of an accident of

some kind at the laboratory.

Leading scientists in China and

internationally have dismissed

such views, saying the virus

likely originated in wildlife,

perhaps bats, before spreading

to humans, possibly through a

food market in Wuhan.

But biosafety experts agree

that as more countries handle

deadly and exotic microbes at

containment labs like the one

in Wuhan, risks of accidents or

terrorism are growing. In a

rush to open labs that scien-

tists say can appear motivated

by national pride, governments

on every major continent now

handle dangerous pathogens

that were once confined to a

handful of institutions like the

U.S. Centers for Disease Con-

trol and Prevention.

“The release of pathogenic

microorganisms from high-

containment laboratories, such

as the pandemic CoV-19, seems

more likely in countries with-

out current, historically solidi-

fied standards or legislation,”

says Thomas Binz, who leads

biosafety efforts at Switzer-

land’s Federal Office of Public

Health.

The showpiece of Wuhan’s

virology institute is a facility

opened in 2017 as the most se-

BYJAMEST.AREDDY

Epidemic Sparks Scrutiny

Of Labs Handling Pathogens

HighStakes

Two dozen countries have secure laboratories. Increasingly,

nations are constructing labs graded for the highest

containment, known as BSL-4.

Source: World Health Organization

*Newcomers Note: Data as of December 2017. Countries with BSL-3+ labs include U.S.,

Switzerland, Argentina, Czech Republic, India, Brazil, Denmark, New Zealand and Spain.

U.S.

U.K.

Germany

Australia

China*

Switzerland

Canada

Japan

IvoryCoast*

France

Hungary

SouthKorea*

Russia

SaudiArabia*

SouthAfrica

Sweden

8 4 3 2 2 2

CzechRepublic 1

India 1

Italy 2

1 1 1 1 1 1

2

1

1

1

3

1

1

1

1

BSL-4 (operational) BSL-4(neworplanned)