Amid the World Health Organization's (WHO) call to destroy potentially lethal virus samples sent to labs worldwide, the Center for Disease Control yesterday confirmed that all of the 75 samples which may contain the pandemic flu strain were already destroyed on Tuesday.
"Immediately after a flu expert in the US informed us on Tuesday morning about the risk of the contaminated virus samples, we ordered all 15 labs contracted with the center to destroy the virus samples," said Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), the center's deputy director-general.
"So far, no lab technicians showed flu symptoms or developed fever. There is no sign of anyone becoming ill from handling the virus vials," Chou said.
Chou's words of reassurance came after the WHO urged nearly 5,000 labs around the world to destroy the virus samples contaminated with a strain classified as H2N2 sent by a US company.
On February 29th, Taiwan received 75 "Asian flu" sample kits from the College of American Pathologists for the routine proficiency test.
Labs use the kits to show they can correctly identify different strains of a virus. The testing kits normally include virus strains in current or recent circulation.
Last month, however, the same batch of vials was found containing a deadly H2N2 strain in Canada's lab.
According to the WHO, the H2N2 is an epidemic virus for many years which could reignite a global flu pandemic.
"The risk is relatively low that a lab worker will get sick, but a large number of labs got it and if someone does get infected, the risk of severe illness is high and this virus has shown to be fully transmissible," WHO influenza chief, Klaus Stohr, told reporters.
The H2N2 strain -- which killed between 1 to 4 million people in the 1957 pandemic -- disappeared by 1968.
Because the 1957 strain has not been included in the flu vaccine since 1968, people under the age of 37 do not have antibodies to fend off the virus.
Although Taiwan's scientists cannot ascertain whether all the 75 samples sent to Taiwan's lab contains the H2N2 strain, health officials still ordered the labs to incinerate the virus samples in fear of a potential outbreak.
"It remained unclear why the 1957 pandemic strain was in the proficiency test kits. Nor did we know if the vials sent to Taiwan were contaminated," said Yang Shih-yang (楊世仰), the director of the center's Division of Laboratory Resources Management.
"Yet if the virus candidate gets loose, it could cause an influenza epidemic that would affect about a third of the population," Yang added.
The center required all the 15 labs in Taiwan to destroy the vials and disinfect the labs.
The center also said that it will continue checking the labs' worklogs and monitoring the health of nearly 50 lab technicians for another week.
The blunder of sending pandemic flu virus to thousands of labs brought back to the fore the questions about the safe handling of deadly germs.
"We regret the error made by the College of American Pathologists. We will keep a close watch on how our routine labs deal with virus samples they have kept in the back of their fridges," Chou said.
Despite the accident, the center said that they will resume importing testing kits from the company.
"The organization is a world authority on proficiency tests. We believe they won't repeat the same error. The center will keep cooperating with them," Chou said.
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