Claims that an Oxford laboratory breached safety laws aimed at preventing potentially lethal viruses endangering the public have been refuted.

Dr Ernest Gould, director of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Mansfield Road, Oxford, denied allegations made about the laboratory in a national Sunday newspaper.

The paper claimed government inspectors had criticised safety procedures in place when research was being carried out on the potentially lethal encephalitis bug.

Dr Gould said government health and safety inspectors had not criticised safety procedures, but had made recommendations to improve staff safety.

Dr Gould said: "All types of institutions are inspected on a regular basis and every so often inspectors recommend that improvements are made to our facilities.

"The Health and Safety Executive has served an improvement notice on us, but that does not mean there was any danger to anybody in the past.

"They want us to reduce risk to scientists by changing the way in which we use the gas Formalin to fumigate our rooms after experiments we have always carried out to develop vaccines and diagnostics."

A spokesman for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) confirmed the Oxford laboratory, partly funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, has been served with an improvement notice. The deadline for the changes, which relate to "management issues" is December.

The spokesman said: "We issued an improvement notice in May and the HSE will monitor the progress made against the objectives set out in the notice."