Inside an Infectious Disease Laboratory's Insectary

By dhahn ()

At Boston University’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), up to 2,000 mosquitoes are held in an Arthropod Containment Level 3 (ACL-3) insectary, with researchers having to make their way through a series of containment [...]barriers to get to their lab to study the insects. Infected mosquitoes are locked in double cages, while mesh and plastic cover every lab entrance—researchers also keep bug zappers on hand as an added precaution. The biosafety measures allow the researchers—suited in Tyvek lab coats and N95 respirators—to study viruses commonly transmitted by Aedes aegypti, like chikungunya, dengue, West Nile, yellow fever, and Zika. In the video above, go inside the insectary to see how the researchers are learning more about mosquitoes and the diseases they carry.
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