According to Wikipedia the lab had been established many decades ago, "The WIV was founded in 1956 as the Wuhan Microbiology Laboratory" and got its current name in 1978. For better or worse, open, public labs tend to be set up in urban areas, see the insane move of the work done at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center to college town Manhattan, Kansas
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan,_Kansas in the heartland of American agriculture.