This photo taken on March 11, 2020 shows a lab techician working on a neutralising antibody test on the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) coronavirus at a Bio Safety Level (BSL) 3 laboratory at the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) in Seoul. - The COVID-19 novel coronavirus outbreak has exposed a lack of global research on ways to combat the spread of infectious diseases, with health authorities failing to learn lessons from previous flare-ups, experts said on March 3. The last outbreak of worldwide signficance was the SARS virus scare of the early 2000s, which killed 774 people, and more recently the Mers virus killed more than 850 people, although the outbreak was largely contained to the Middle East. (Photo by Ed JONES / AFP)