Experts fear escape of 1918 flu from lab

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http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996554

 

 

 

 

 

 

Experts fear escape of 1918 flu from lab

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10:33 21 October 04

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 1918 flu virus spread across the world in three months and

killed at least 40 million people. If it escaped from a lab today, the

death toll could be far higher. “The potential implications of an

infected lab worker – and spread beyond the lab – are terrifying,” says

D. A. Henderson of the University of Pittsburgh, a leading biosecurity

expert.

Yet despite the danger, researchers in the US are working with

reconstructed versions of the virus at less than the maximum level of

containment. Many other experts are worried about the risks. “All the

virologists I have spoken to have concerns,” says Ingegerd Kallings of

the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control in Stockholm, who

helped set laboratory safety standards for the World Health

Organization.

Work on the 1918 flu virus is not the only worry. Some

experiments with bird flu have also been criticised as dangerous (New

Scientist print edition, 28 February 2004).

Kallings and others are calling for international discussions

to

resolve the issues related to such work. “It is time for influenza

scientists to find a consensus on containment,” she says. John

MacKenzie of the University of Queensland in Australia, who

investigated how the SARS virus escaped from high-level containment

labs in east Asia on three occasions after lab workers became infected,

agrees. “A meeting would be beneficial.”