Brazil is building the first maximum-security biolab in Latin America

Construction began on Latin America’s first maximum-security biosciences laboratory.

Biosafety level 4 laboratories are designed to work with deadly airborne pathogens for which there are no treatments, and other similarly dangerous materials: There are 51 around the world, mostly in North America and Europe.

The Orion facility in Brazil will open in 2026, and a virologist told Nature that it was sorely needed: Latin America is “sitting on a powder keg” of pathogens, especially as the Amazon rainforest is cleared and humans come into more and more contact with animals and their previously unknown viruses: “We need a laboratory like this so we can give quick responses.”