The news media and the Internet provide daily reminders of continuing dangers from the microbial world. Mysterious hemorrhagic fevers emerge in Russia.
Prions stalk Europe.
Marburg, Lassa, and Ebola viruses erupt in Africa. Hantavirus lurks in the Americas. Rumors of graveyard sources of smallpox haunt South Africa. Authorities have been quick to respond to these developments, and experts have relied on special containment laboratories to study these infectious agents in safety. Indeed, the emergence of so many new infectious diseases has helped ignite something of a building boom in high-tech containment laboratories worldwide.