Emerging and re-emerging diseases have fuelled the construction and operation of high number of high biocontainment facilities (or Biosafety level 3) and maximum biocontainment (Biosafety level 4) facilities. Only those centres can manipulate and propagate hazardous and easily transmissible pathogens, even lethal ones, safely. This implies that professionals dedicated to issues of emerging or re-emerging infectious diseases, and in particular also zoonotic diseases, should have not only theoretical knowledge, but also practical, of the facilities in which they will potentially work or that they should manage in the future.