The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic represents an enormous challenge to all countries,regardless of their development status.The manipulation of its etiologic agent SARS-CoV-2 requires a biosafety containment level 3 laboratories (BSL-3) to understand virus biology and in vivo pathogenesis as well as the translation of new knowledge into the preclinical development of vaccines and antivirals.As such,BSL-3 facilities should be considered an integral part of any public health response to emerging infectious disease prevention,control and management.Differently from BSL-2,BSL-3 units vary considerably along the range from industrialized to the least developed countries.Ianovative Developing Countries (IDCs) such as Brazil,which excelled at controlling the 2015-2017 Zika epidemic,had to face a serious flaw in its disease control and prevention structure: the scarcity and uneven geographic distribution of its BSL-3 facilities,including those for predinical animal experimentation.