Labs Scramble to Destroy Deadly Flu Samples

An anonymous reader submits "According to this Yahoo! news story, a deadly strain of the Flu virus was mistakenly sent out to thousands of labs, mostly in the U.S., as samples for routine testing. The samples were sent starting last year, but the rush to destroy them began shortly after the WHO raised an alert last Friday following its discovery by the National Microbial Laboratory Canada on March 26. It was not immediately clear why the 1957 pandemic strain, which killed between 1 million and 4 million people -- was in the proficiency test kits routinely sent to labs."

Comments

Re:Famous last words

[Koiu Lpoi]

Wouldn't it really be the other way around? More like

"Huh? Oh, crap! Oops! Hey... Cough, cough, gasp, whease, vomit, hurk, blek."

Unless this really is the Uberflu, it's not gonna infect and show symptoms that quickly.

so a private firm made lots of it to send out

[artifex2004]

when they were asked to pick a strain themselves to test people with, and it took the WHO to tell them they screwed up and shouldn't have done it?

How many private firms have stockpiles of old virus strains we no longer have immunity to? And are they really that stupid?

Re:this is the way the world ends

[GreyWolf3000]

The plural of 'virus' is not virii. I can't remember which declension virus is in, but the plural for virus is most likely 'viri' (if masculine), or 'vira' (if neuter). Some third declension nouns end in 'us' but I highly doubt virus is one of them (it would be 'vires' in that case, I believe). Knowing the the genetive singular would solve it all, but I don't know of any decent online latin dictionary.

I seem to recall the proper latin plural being 'viri,' but honestly in English I think we should all just say 'viruses.'

Re:Famous last words

[Curtman]

As someone who lives 15 minutes away from the National Microbial Laboratory, I hope not.

BTW, I'm really surprised that this story didn't get more attention.

Couple of issues raised....

[failedlogic]

1) Through there are obvious ethical questions, what legal responsibilities are their for scientits domestically and under international law to protect the public from releasing (intentionally or unintentionally) these types of strains.

My hope is that the scientist(s) responsible for this accident, are at least, fined for this incident. I hope if there is gross incompetence, that they not work as a scientist in a medical facility ever again.

2) If this is such a dangerous flu virus, and it hasn't been innoculated against since 1957 or 1960, why were the innoculations stopped?

I think its similar to small pox, where unfortunately, it was supposed to be "destroyed". But like nuclear weapons, its a "Well, if you're keeping it, so are we." mentality.

3) After seeing problems with SARS evolve internationnaly (particually where I live, in Canada) what measures are being taken to seclude and isolate potential travellers, who move about with flu-like symptoms?

I raised this with gov't officials at Health Canada about two years ago during the SARS. They said the airplanes were throughly 'cleaned' after each flight. How? When? With what? They really couldn't give me details ... because they didn't have any. What about the U.S., Europe? The problem is international contamination of viruses now because almost any country is witin a 10 to 15 hour flight.

Re:This can't be good.

[jd]

The biggest problem is that they HAVE been in a rush to destroy them. That's a remarkably efficient way of ensuring accidents happen and that samples get missed.

A bigger concern is that the shipments went out in November last year, including to countries in the Middle East. A sympathizer in the wrong place could easily have recognized it and produced more by now.

However, the biggest concern of all is that this is a sample that was caught. Is it possible that other deadly viruses have been sent out, in other packs, in error and have NOT been spotted? This one got sent to so many, that it was bound to be seen sooner or later. But there must be other times when specific labs request random samples of stuff. In a situation like that, a mix-up might easily go undetected.

If you've ever read "The Hot Zone", you'll remember a chapter describing how a lab using monkeys sent one that had died under unknown conditions, in a totally unprotected container. Turned out the monkey had died from an airborne strain of Ebola. The researchers were VERY VERY lucky it wasn't a strain humans could catch, or about 90% of America would be dead by now.

This is one reason why people have to be bloody careful with medical samples of any kind. We've been lucky, so far, because the mistakes have - for many reasons - not broken out. Luck has a nasty habit of running out.

Or maybe I watched Terry Nation's "Survivors" series too many times. (That was the theme in the series - a lab accident results in a virus wiping out most of humanity, with those few survivors basically stuck in a hybrid high-tech/stone-age environment.)