The governments of both Nagasaki Prefecture and city on Tuesday notified Nagasaki University of their intention to work with the institution to set up a certified laboratory to handle deadly pathogens, despite safety concerns expressed by local residents.

The university said the biosafety level 4 laboratory it plans to set up would operate under the most stringent biosafety standards according to a four-level scale. It is expected to conduct research beginning in fiscal 2020 into pathogens that are easily spread and often deadly, such as the Ebola virus.

The facility would be the first such research lab in the nation. The only working BSL-4 lab in the country — at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Musashimurayama, in western Tokyo — only conducts tests to determine whether someone is infected with a highly contagious pathogen.