Anthony
04-13-2005, 02:46 PM
Found on GFY and From the boston globe.
Alarm sounded on flu virus at labs
Mix-up sends out strain samples tied to 1957 pandemic
By Rob Stein and Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post | April 13, 2005
WASHINGTON -- A dangerous strain of the flu virus that caused a worldwide pandemic in 1957 was sent to thousands of laboratories in the United States and around the world, triggering a frantic effort to destroy the samples to prevent an outbreak, health officials said yesterday.
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Because the virus is easily transmitted from person to person and many people have no immunity to it, the discovery raised alarm that it could cause another deadly pandemic if a laboratory worker became infected, officials said. As a result, health authorities were urgently working to make sure all samples are destroyed and to closely monitor anyone who may have come into contact with the virus for signs of illness, officials said.
''This virus could cause a pandemic," said Klaus Stohr, the World Health Organization's top flu specialist. ''We are talking about a fully transmissible human influenza virus to which the majority of the population has no immunity. We are concerned."
Although no infections have been reported, and the chances of infection were probably low, the potential consequences were so grave that urgent steps were necessary, he said.
''If a laboratory accident were to occur, a person could become infected. If that happened, that person would likely fall ill and he or she could infect somebody else. And that could mark the beginning of a global outbreak," Stohr said.
In Massachusetts, the state health laboratory in Boston's Jamaica Plain section received a sample of the material for testing in February but has since destroyed it as part of standard procedure, said Dr. Alfred DeMaria, the state's director of communicable disease control. Labs are routinely sent samples of viral material as a quality-control measure to make sure they have the ability to work with different pathogens, he said.
DeMaria said he believed the mix-up in strains posed no threat because labs that would have been working with the material know how to handle it properly.
The WHO was working with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and other national health agencies to contain the situation.
The virus, known as an H2N2 strain, killed 1 million to 4 million people worldwide in 1957 and 1958, including about 70,000 in the United States. Because the virus has not circulated in the wild since 1968, anyone born after then would have no natural immunity to it. Since then the virus has been kept only in high-security biological laboratories.
The problem arose when Meridian Bioscience Inc. of Cincinnati, a private company, sent a panel of virus samples to about 3,700 laboratories, some in doctors' offices, to be tested as part of routine quality-control certification conducted by the College of American Pathologists. An additional 2,750 laboratories, all in the United States, received the samples and were asked to destroy them, CDC spokesman Dan Rutz said.
The panel samples usually include only strains of the flu virus that are relatively benign, Stohr said. ''We would consider this an unwise and unfortunate decision."
The samples were sent out beginning last fall, primarily to labs in the United States, although 14 were in Canada and 61 were in 16 other countries, Stohr said.
The mistake came to light March 25 when the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, identified the virus.
Canadian officials notified the WHO and CDC on Friday, which led to the discovery of the dangerous samples.
Robert Webster, a flu specialist at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, called the incident ''a terrible, terrible mistake."
''This may alert WHO and Homeland Security and whoever wants to know that each and every H2N2 sample from 1957 needs to be rounded up and locked down," he said.
Stephen Smith of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Alarm sounded on flu virus at labs
Mix-up sends out strain samples tied to 1957 pandemic
By Rob Stein and Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post | April 13, 2005
WASHINGTON -- A dangerous strain of the flu virus that caused a worldwide pandemic in 1957 was sent to thousands of laboratories in the United States and around the world, triggering a frantic effort to destroy the samples to prevent an outbreak, health officials said yesterday.
ADVERTISEMENT
Because the virus is easily transmitted from person to person and many people have no immunity to it, the discovery raised alarm that it could cause another deadly pandemic if a laboratory worker became infected, officials said. As a result, health authorities were urgently working to make sure all samples are destroyed and to closely monitor anyone who may have come into contact with the virus for signs of illness, officials said.
''This virus could cause a pandemic," said Klaus Stohr, the World Health Organization's top flu specialist. ''We are talking about a fully transmissible human influenza virus to which the majority of the population has no immunity. We are concerned."
Although no infections have been reported, and the chances of infection were probably low, the potential consequences were so grave that urgent steps were necessary, he said.
''If a laboratory accident were to occur, a person could become infected. If that happened, that person would likely fall ill and he or she could infect somebody else. And that could mark the beginning of a global outbreak," Stohr said.
In Massachusetts, the state health laboratory in Boston's Jamaica Plain section received a sample of the material for testing in February but has since destroyed it as part of standard procedure, said Dr. Alfred DeMaria, the state's director of communicable disease control. Labs are routinely sent samples of viral material as a quality-control measure to make sure they have the ability to work with different pathogens, he said.
DeMaria said he believed the mix-up in strains posed no threat because labs that would have been working with the material know how to handle it properly.
The WHO was working with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and other national health agencies to contain the situation.
The virus, known as an H2N2 strain, killed 1 million to 4 million people worldwide in 1957 and 1958, including about 70,000 in the United States. Because the virus has not circulated in the wild since 1968, anyone born after then would have no natural immunity to it. Since then the virus has been kept only in high-security biological laboratories.
The problem arose when Meridian Bioscience Inc. of Cincinnati, a private company, sent a panel of virus samples to about 3,700 laboratories, some in doctors' offices, to be tested as part of routine quality-control certification conducted by the College of American Pathologists. An additional 2,750 laboratories, all in the United States, received the samples and were asked to destroy them, CDC spokesman Dan Rutz said.
The panel samples usually include only strains of the flu virus that are relatively benign, Stohr said. ''We would consider this an unwise and unfortunate decision."
The samples were sent out beginning last fall, primarily to labs in the United States, although 14 were in Canada and 61 were in 16 other countries, Stohr said.
The mistake came to light March 25 when the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, identified the virus.
Canadian officials notified the WHO and CDC on Friday, which led to the discovery of the dangerous samples.
Robert Webster, a flu specialist at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, called the incident ''a terrible, terrible mistake."
''This may alert WHO and Homeland Security and whoever wants to know that each and every H2N2 sample from 1957 needs to be rounded up and locked down," he said.
Stephen Smith of the Globe staff contributed to this report.