Virologist Xavier Abad issued a warning on his social networks on November 14. “There are accidents in laboratories or facilities that manage pathogens,” warned Abad, head of the biocontainment unit at the Centro de Investigación en Sanidad Animal (CReSA), a laboratory dependent on the Generalitat of Catalonia where the deadly African swine fever virus is studied. In the following weeks, a few hundred meters of the installation appeared, only a few meters away, due to a disease eradicated from Spain since 1994. Abad himself, hyperactive on the social network X, announced on September 14 that work had begun in his high security laboratory, to expand it. CReSA declined to answer questions from this periodical about whether the construction work could weaken biosecurity. The laboratory opted for absolute opacity. Ni siquiera confirms that it will take three months. This time, the noise of heavy machinery invaded the center and a crane rose on the horizon above a school of workers in yellow coats and the bosses of the police station that guards the area, as EL PAÍS proved.
El CReSA, located in Bellaterra (Barcelona), is a central hub in Spain. It has a 4,500 square meter biocontainment unit, with six biosafety level 3 laboratories, necessary to manage viruses like African swine fever, capable of affecting a country. China lost almost 1% of its gross domestic product following a brain epidemic that began in 2018: around 100 billion euros, according to an estimate by economists at Wuhan University. The CReSA works, awarded to the construction company Rogasa, consist of expanding the high security laboratory area by 3,000 square meters.
When Xavier Abad warned a month ago that leaks in laboratories were occurring, I brought the example of one of the largest accidents in the history of infectious diseases, recorded in the summer of 2019 in a biopharmaceutical factory in Lanzhou, in the interior of China. An escape from bacteria Tweezer by air, it caused more than 10,000 cases of brucellosis ―a disease characterized by a wavy fiber that could last for years― in people around the factory, dedicated to the production of vaccines against the microbe. “The probable cause? Simple and stupid: using expired disinfectants,” Abad himself explained.
CReSA has been in the spotlight since the Agriculture Ministry recently opened an investigation into whether the virus escaped from a laboratory. Genetic analyses, carried out at the Animal Health Research Center (CISA-INIA) in the Madrid town of Valdeolmos, show that the virus does not resemble those currently circulating in other European countries, but is more similar to the one detected in Georgia in 2007 and used in laboratories since then. The CISA report is inconclusive and experts insist that all possibilities remain open, including the gimmick hypothesis floated by the ministry itself since day one: that the pathogen arrived in Barcelona through contaminated foreign food thrown to the bottom and devoured by wild boars.
Veterinarian José Manuel Sánchez Vizcaíno, one of the world’s leading experts on African swine fever, visits the laboratory. “If it had been introduced through fur mouths or by animals, it would be a clearly identifiable virus. So how does this virus appear suddenly, if it apparently does not circulate in nature? In every laboratory we have this variant. All epidemiological probabilities lead to what could be an escape. This probability should not offend anyone. Accidents of loss can occur,” explains Sánchez Vizcaíno, professor emeritus of the Complutense University of Madrid and founding director of the university. safety laboratory in Valdeolmos.
CReSA scientists are working with strains similar to the virus that spread from Southeast Africa to Georgia in 2007, sparking the current international crisis. The Catalan body receives these pathogens for investigation from the Pirbright Institute, an English laboratory which, although also having a biosafety level 3, suffered a breakout of the foot and mouth disease virus in 2007, probably due to a leak in tubes combined with construction works which facilitated its spread. Construction trucks could carry the virus to a nearby farm, triggering an outbreak that would have cost farmers millions.
Coinciding with the Barcelona epidemic, a wild boar with African swine fever and a tail attached to its leg appeared in Poland, in a disease-free area. The Polish Ministry of Agriculture has speculated that it was “sabotage,” an alleged biological attack carried out by Russia to destabilize Poland, although there are simpler explanations, such as stealth hunting. In 1977, after half a million brains died, the CIA decided to introduce the virus to Cuba to overthrow Fidel Castro.
Veterinarian Christian Gortázar is an expert in African swine fever at the Kinetic Resources Research Institute in Ciudad Real. Know that when reading the preliminary findings of the genetic analysis of the Barcelona virus, you also thought about sabotage, in which someone deliberately left contaminated food near CReSA, for whatever reason.
“In a biosafety level 3 facility, it is very unlikely that this virus will escape, because to transmit it you need a certain amount of infected tissue or a virus culture,” explains Gortázar. “The foot-and-mouth disease virus is small and can be accidentally introduced into the nose. The African swine fever virus is so large and so difficult to transmit that it is very unlikely to escape. That is why it occurs to me to think more of an harm than an accident,” said the veterinarian, who was unaware of the existence of works at CReSA. This new factor “calls for attention”, he recognizes. The Catalan laboratory also has a double wall, despite the presence of wild boars in the surrounding forests.
“I don’t know if it will be possible to demonstrate the origin of the virus. With my current knowledge, I cannot exclude that there is no virus circulating in Georgia, Russia or China that looks much more like the one found in CReSA refrigerators,” says Gortázar. The origin of the Covid pandemic has not yet been determined. An independent expert panel constituted by the World Health Organization explained on June 27 that “available tests suggest a jump from animals, directly from animals or via an intermediate host”, but it cannot be ruled out that the coronavirus escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. The Chinese dictatorship has refused to share key information, as reported by the WHO.
A scientific committee ―coordinated by veterinarian Laura Pérez, from CISA― is studying the possibility of a laboratory leak as the cause of the appearance of African swine fever in 13 jabalís in Barcelona. One of the six members of the committee is Xavier Abad himself, head of the CReSA biocontainment unit. The virologist is a controversial figure, due to his angry opinions on social networks. In 2020, he publicly apologized for repeatedly insulting several non-independence politicians and for declaring that Spain is a country of “borrachos and violent people”, “illiterate and illiterate donkeys” and “a toxic and parasitic man who has irritated the Catalan population for decades”.
In March 2020, Abad explained the greater impact of the covid pandemic in Spain compared to other countries: “Because they are Spanish.” It is now your laboratory that is in your sights. This periodical requested an interview with Xavier Abad, but CReSA insisted that no statement be made. The virologist also publicly boasts of not responding to communication measures based in Madrid, “on principle”.
About The Author
