A gas explosion has caused a fire and injured one worker at the State Research Centre of Virology and Biotechnology (VECTOR) in Siberia, a facility that houses strains of Ebola and smallpox.
VECTOR announced on Monday that a gas tank erupted during repairs in a sanitary inspection room on the fifth floor of a six-story laboratory building in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk region. One worker was hospitalized with third-degree burns from the blast.
The facility was developed during the 1970s to create and protect themselves against biological weapons during the Soviet era. It is now one of Russia’s foremost disease research centers. 
Under Rospotrebnadzor (Russia’s Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare) supervision, the centre stores dangerous strains of smallpox, anthrax, Ebola, and other viruses.
Russian authorities state that the room where the gas explosion occurred did not contain  hazardous substances and no structural damage was caused. The fire covered 30 square meters and has since been extinguished.
VECTOR is one of two places on Earth known to store samples of the live smallpox virus. The other sample of the deadly pathogen is stored at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
The facility completed trials of an Ebola vaccine earlier this year. A VECTOR researcher died there in 2004 after pricking herself with a needle carrying the virus, raising concerns about safety and secrecy.
A 2016 World Health Organization inspection said VECTOR met biosafety and biosecurity standards, but inspectors had “requested further work on some issues.”
>Juthy Saha