A suspected exposure to a lethal hemorrhagic fever virus triggered emergency protocols at a US high-security laboratory, officials have confirmed.
The incident occurred at Rocky Mountain Laboratories (RML), a high-containment research facility in Montana operated by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on November 3, 2025.
RML, in Hamilton, operates at biosafety level 4, the highest containment, and is staffed 24/7 by specially trained scientists, technicians and security personnel to handle deadly pathogens.
The lab specializes in infectious diseases, immunology and high-containment research on emerging threats.
The incident was revealed this week by the watchdog group White Coat Waste, which uncovered a biolab report showing ‘one of these pathogens was accidentally released, lost or stolen.’
A press secretary from the US Department of Health and Human Services told Daily Mail that the emergency was triggered due to a possible Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) virus exposure, breaching an employee’s personal protective equipment.
CCHF is a severe, tick-borne viral disease causing flu-like symptoms that can progress to life-threatening hemorrhages and organ failure, with a significant fatality rate, especially in severe cases.
A June 2025 NIH-backed report showed the lab had been conducting animal experiments involving CCHFV as part of vaccine research, underscoring the high-risk nature of the work carried out at the facility.
Officials confirmed there was a suspected exposure at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana last November
Staff was working with the Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a lethal tick-borne virus
‘The employee was immediately isolated and monitored under appropriate care at a specialized medical facility before it was confirmed that no actual exposure or transmission had occurred,’ the press secretary said.
Symptoms of CCHF usually appear within three days of a bite from an infected tick and include fever, muscle ache, dizziness and sore eyes.
The World Health Organization says nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and mood swings are also common early signs of the disease.
Within a week, patients may also suffer a racing heartbeat, bleeding skin rashes, as well as blood spilling out of small capillaries, such as around the eyes.
Organs such as the liver begin to fail. Treatments for the condition are limited, although doctors have seen some success with the antiviral drug ribavirin, which is used to treat hepatitis C.
CCHF causes a severe, often fatal illness in humans, with case fatality rates ranging from five to 30 percent.
The press secretary told Daily Mail: ‘At no time was there any risk to the public or to other staff.’
White Coast Waste (WCW), a bipartisan group working to defund cruel and unnecessary animal experiments, uncovered an official record of a meeting with the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) at NIH’s RML, dated November 20, 2025.
Officials said the an employee suspected the virus breached their personal protective equipment, similar to what is shown in this image. Pictured is another researchers studying Ebola at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories
One of CCHF’s most common symptoms is bleeding from the eyes and on the skin (file image)
The minutes are publicly posted on the NIH Office of Research Services (ORS) Division of Occupational Health and Safety (DOHS) page for biosafety committee minutes.
There is a brief line noting a ‘Form 3 reported to Federal Select Agent Program on 11/13/2025’ under ‘Biological Incidents to Report,’ but with zero details, discussion or follow-up mentioned.
Form 3 (officially APHIS/CDC Form 3) is the required government paperwork that any registered lab must submit immediately, and complete in full within seven days, if it discovers a theft, loss, or release of a regulated biological agent.
A ‘release’ can include an accidental spill, leak or any situation where a worker may have been exposed outside of its containment area.
The Federal Select Agent Program oversees these regulations and requires labs to report such incidents through an online system or other approved methods.
These reports are mandatory for even small or low-risk issues, and not every Form 3 means a major accident or public danger; many are minor compliance issues that get resolved quickly.
White Coat Waste revealed in 2023 that RML had been experimenting with SARS-like viruses a year before the Covid pandemic.
Although that research has been halted, current projects involving other deadly pathogens with the potential to spark a new pandemic are still being carried out at the lab.
These include injecting pigs with Ebola and infecting monkeys with Covid-19 and studying how they react to Hemorrhagic Fever, which involves vomiting blood, internal bleeding, bleeding in the brain and from the eyes, nose and mouth.
Previous documents from WCW revealed that in 2018, NIH researchers infected bats at the RML with a ‘SARS-like’ virus as part of a collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which is at the center of the Covid cover-up scandal.
They showed that US taxpayer money was used to experiment with coronaviruses from the Chinese lab thought to be the source of the Covid pandemic more than a year before the global outbreak.
