Ho Ching, CEO of Temasek Holdings, has unveiled the first mobile Biosafety Lab that has arrived in Singapore from halfway around the world to end up at our PSA docks.

In a Facebook post on May 30, Ho did not reveal the exact source country that produced the mobile container lab, but said it made its voyage around the Cape of Good Hope instead of coming through the Suez Canal.

This is understood to mean that the lab was shipped from Europe.

As the first lab to arrive here, the 53-foot (16-metre) mobile lab, referred to as BSL2+, can handle high bio safety tasks, such as processing deactivated Covid-19 swab test samples or sewer waste water testing samples.

Ho wrote that others coming in over the next few months include BSL3 labs, which will be used for research or tasks involving “live” coronaviruses.

These will join and complement the suite of BSL3 research labs in Singapore.

The highest grade is a BSL4 lab that can handle live dangerous viruses, such as Ebola, which are highly contagious.

Operational in less than a month

Covid-19 coronavirus is a BSL3 pathogen.

Only a few countries in the world have BSL4 capabilities.

Ho said the first BSL2+ system will become operational within the next two to four weeks, as the first of Singapore's mobile BSL Covid-19-focused labs.

Its presence now in Singapore is to prepare the country for the next phase, where proper research and data collection can be carried out by trained personnel, as Covid-19 case numbers have been falling -- showing that the pandemic can be contained.

The task ahead is to search for cures and vaccines.

No leakages

The purpose of these labs is not just its mobility, but its ability to prevent pathogen leakage.

Ho explained that these mobile labs all have negative pressure systems or NPS.

This is to ensure there are no air leakages to the outside world, without passing through high performance filters and UVC (ultraviolet light) and other cleaners, to kill and remove pathogens.

This means air venting out from these mobile containers would be cleaner than the ambient air outside.

Five of the BSL2+ labs will be equipped by Temasek Foundation to join the expanding Covid-19 test lab capacities and capabilities in Singapore.

Training manpower

The National University of Singapore has been supporting the training of lab operations managers, safety managers, and lab technicians to build up the manpower required to safely operate these high safety labs, Ho wrote.

Scientists and clinicians are getting ready to start their various additional research and tests.

Ho also said various government agencies are also standing by to do the methodical certification and qualification of personnel, systems and processes.

Use science

The importing of these labs is just one part of a whole of nation effort to not just test and treat, swab and separate, diagnose and decant, Ho said.

"We want to add to our capacity and capabilities to do research, gather data and evidence so that we can manage Covid-19 pandemic smartly with knowledge, skills, as well as every bit of science and technology that we can muster," she wrote.

Ho's post thanked PSA Singapore for organising the shipping logistics, and tracking its daily progress across the seas.

She also asked readers of her post to guess which institution in Singapore would host this first BSL2+ lab and what will be the first thing it will do.

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