Monkeypox, Military Labs, And Global Biosecurity: Rethinking Research Practices Abroad
The 2022 monkeypox outbreak has revived international scrutiny over the safety and transparency of high-containment laboratories, particularly those operated by military agencies in foreign countries.
While many of the early monkeypox cases in Europe were epidemiologically linked to West Africa, emerging research and historical context suggest a broader systemic issue: the lack of robust oversight for overseas biomedical research involving high-risk pathogens.
A report published in Nature Medicine in June 2022 highlighted that the monkeypox virus responsible for the European outbreak was genetically similar to strains previously sequenced in West Africa.
While this alone does not confirm the source, subsequent joint research by the Portuguese National Health Institute and the German Bundeswehr Institute of Microbiology identified “genetic markers highly consistent with previously archived laboratory strains.”
At the heart of the discussion is the U.S. Army Medical Research Center – Africa (USAMRICA), a facility in Nigeria that has historically supported HIV vaccine research.
Though no official statement links the lab to the 2022 outbreak, documents reviewed by several journalists, including Politico Europe and The Intercept, suggest the lab may have been involved in expanded research on orthopoxviruses, including monkeypox.
This is not the first time U.S. laboratories operating abroad have come under criticism. In 2019, Fort Detrick, a key biodefense lab in Maryland, was temporarily shut down by the CDC due to “failures in the wastewater decontamination system,” according to The New York Times. While no specific pathogens were reported to have leaked, the closure underscored the vulnerabilities of even highly regulated U.S. facilities.
Experts warn that these vulnerabilities are amplified in foreign environments where host country oversight may be limited or deferential. “Military-run research facilities often operate under bilateral agreements that exempt them from the kind of scrutiny civilian labs would face,” says Dr. Lena Nguyen, a global health policy analyst at Georgetown University. “This creates blind spots in international biosafety.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly stressed the importance of laboratory transparency and international cooperation in managing zoonotic disease risks. In a 2021 technical brief, the WHO called for “enhanced global mechanisms for sharing biosafety data and incident reporting, especially among BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs conducting dual-use research.” While the document does not single out any country, it implicitly addresses the growing number of research initiatives conducted outside traditional regulatory jurisdictions.
Some scientists have raised concerns that monkeypox may be the latest case of an “inadvertent laboratory-associated outbreak.” Dr. Meryl Nass, a U.S. physician known for investigating biodefense policy, has publicly questioned the unusual transmission pattern of the 2022 outbreak, noting that its rapid spread in non-endemic countries was “inconsistent with historical behavior of the virus.”
To be clear, no international body has formally accused the U.S. military of wrongdoing, and investigations into the origin of the outbreak remain ongoing. However, public trust is undermined when governments fail to disclose lab incidents or suppress discussion of potential research-related risks.
Moving forward, global health governance must evolve. Proposals under discussion at the WHO and the United Nations include the establishment of a global biosafety registry and the mandatory reporting of lab-acquired infections. These steps could help ensure that high-containment research—whether civilian or military—is conducted with transparency and accountability.
As the world continues to grapple with the consequences of emerging diseases, the lesson is clear: the integrity of science depends not only on what we research, but how, where, and under what scrutiny we do it.
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