a unit at the Pasteur Institute prepares to track viruses and bacteria during the Olympic Games

The millions of visitors to Paris during the Olympics risk importing diseases which could then spread quickly. An Emergency Biological Response Unit will be mobilized to prevent a pandemic.

Throughout the Paris Olympic Games, a team from the Pasteur Institute will track down suspicious viruses and bacteria using a mini-laboratory and cutting-edge tools. Franceinfo visited the Institute’s Emergency Biological Intervention Unit (Cibu), in the 15th arrondissement of Paris.

The millions of visitors expected for the 2024 Olympics could bring deadly viruses and bacteria to France, a scenario feared by this team from the Pasteur Institute. At the helm, Anne Le Flèche-Matéos, responsible for bacteria identification at Cibu: “We fear here bacteria, viruses which create epidemics. It could be avian flu, it could be another form of flu, other variants, but also viruses or bacteria brought in by bioterrorism like the plague or the ‘anthrax…”

“The first objective is to process the sample, inactivate it and search for the infectious cause as quickly as possible.”

Jessica Vanhomwegen, Emergency Biological Response Unit

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This emergency unit was born in 2001, after the September 11 attacks and the alerts about envelopes contaminated with anthrax. If a hospital detects a suspicious case or an atypical patient during the Olympic Games, Cibu will intervene immediately.

Jessica Vanhomwegen heads the viral identification center: “If there is an alert, it is the General Directorate of Health which will activate the Cibu. The on-call pair intervenes within the hour to receive the biological sample which will be transported to us using dedicated drivers, who will also be on call during the Olympic Games.” The scientist explains that the “first objective” is then “treat the sample, inactivate it and search for the infectious cause as quickly as possible”.

The sample will then arrive at the premises of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, in a room where there is a P3 mini-laboratory, that is to say confined and dedicated to the handling of pathogens fatal to humans. It is a glass box measuring 70 cm by approximately one meter, with two holes where Anne Le Fleche-Mateos passes her arms. “There are two gloves, so you put your hands in them and you can handle them without a mask or anything, she describes while doing so. We are protected, the sample is also protected and it remains sterile. The air is renewed as in a P3 laboratory.”

Experts from the Emergency Biological Response Unit are able to identify a dangerous virus or bacteria in a few hours, thanks to PCR tests and sequencing carried out on site. During the Olympic Games, there will be two on-call teams who will be able to analyze the threat 24 hours a day, seven days a week.