Labs scramble to destroy lethal flu virus

[Neil D]

Wednesday, 13 April , 2005, 20:57

Geneva: The World Health Organisation issued a warning on Tuesday after a US institute sent to thousands of laboratories samples of a lethal flu virus that slew up to four million people in the late 1950s.

The controversy revealed an apparent loophole in biosafety procedures, experts said.

"There is a slim but a real risk that this could spark a pandemic," said Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the WHO, explaining that many people around the world would have no protection if the virus were ever released from the high-security labs.

The virus, H2N2, killed between one million and four million people worldwide during the Asian influenza pandemic of 1957-58 before disappearing in 1968.

"As far as pandemics go, it (the event in 1957-58) was relatively mild. But if this were to recur it would have significant consequences for the public health system," Cheng told AFP.

The samples were included in kits used to regularly test the ability of the laboratories in 18 countries to identify strains of flu virus.

Ninety per cent of the laboratories were in North America.

The virus was sent to laboratories in Belgium, Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and the United States, the UN's health agency said.

So far, laboratories in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea are known to have destroyed all the H2N2 samples they received, it said.