Deadly influenza virus shipments missing: WHO

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Deadly influenza virus shipments missing: WHO

 

CTV.ca News Staff

 

Health experts have destroyed most samples of a deadly influenza

strain mistakenly sent to labs around the world; but two shipments

meant to reach Mexico and Lebanon are missing, UN officials said Friday.

 

" We don't know where these boxes got lost, but the investigation into

what has happened between the shipment of these panels and their

non-arrival is ranking very high on our 'to do' list, " WHO influenza

chief Klaus Stohr said, referring to the Mexico and Lebanon shipments.

 

The samples were unintentionally sent to nearly 4,000 labs in 18

countries at the request of the College of American Pathologists,

which assists laboratories to do quality testing.

 

Most of them have been destroyed so far, The World Health Organization

confirmed Friday, but two shipments meant to reach Mexico and Lebanon

are unaccounted for.

 

Stohr said Friday that 10 countries that had received samples

confirmed their labs destroyed the virus. Those countries include:

Canada, Chile, France, Hong Kong, Belgium, Germany Italy, South Korea,

Taiwan and Singapore.

 

However, laboratories in Lebanon and Mexico " never received the

specimen even though they were on the distribution list, " Stohr said.

 

He said it was possible the samples had never been sent to the two

countries, but that he couldn't be sure.

 

The five other nations that had received the samples were Saudi

Arabia, Bermuda, Brazil, Israel and Japan.

 

Stohr said four of the five labs in Saudi Arabia that received the

samples had destroyed them. The other four countries had not yet

confirmed that they followed up on instructions to destroy the samples.

 

The UN health agency officials urged laboratories to destroy the kits

after first being alerted of their existence by Canadians who found

the vials in their British Columbia laboratory.

 

They reported their findings to the Public Health Agency of Canada and

the World Health Organization was subsequently warned on April 8.

 

The Canadian laboratory received the samples in February, but

officials were not sure when they should have been sent to Mexico and

Lebanon.

 

" We are worried, but CAP said there is a possibility they were never

sent. (Otherwise), I cannot say at this stage what we would possibly

do, " Stohr said.

 

" The carrier, the transporter and packager would have to be questioned

particularly about these packages.

 

The samples contain the deadly H2N2 virus, otherwise known as the

" Asian flu " .

 

H2N2 caused the 1957 pandemic that killed an estimated one million to

four million people around the world. It was last seen in humans in 1968.

 

With files from The Associated Press

 

 

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http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1 & categ_id=2 & article_id=14337

 

 

 

Deadly flu virus unaccounted for in Lebanon

 

By Linda Dahdah

Daily Star staff

Saturday, April 16, 2005

 

BEIRUT: Samples of a deadly flu virus sent by the College of American

Pathologists to more than 3,700 laboratories around the world appear

to have gone missing on their way to Lebanon and Mexico, according to

the World Health Organization on Friday.

 

" (Some of the countries) were on the address list of the college but

never received anything. We were given to understand the material was

shipped but it never arrived in Lebanon, Mexico, " WHO chief flu expert

Klaus Stohr told journalists, adding, " There is still a possibility

this material was never sent, but there is no confirmation. "

 

But, according to outgoing Health Minister Mohammed Khalifeh, " No

sample has ever entered the country. Nothing was received at the

airport, nor the labs or the Health Ministry. "

 

The minister added that, upon receiving the WHO alert, the ministry

took immediate measures and a tracing operation was now under way.

 

Khalifeh said: " What happens is that the WHO sends viruses to specific

laboratories around the world for certification, and only two labs in

Lebanon are able to receive and culture such viruses, the Hotel Dieu

and the American University Hospital. The trace went back seven or

eight months showing that nothing came in. "

 

WHO institutes, which have already tested the viruses, often send

virus samples to labs around the world to ensure

 

they attain correct results in recognizing a pathogen by selecting

certain types of viruses before certifying the institutions.

 

According to Khalifeh, " There is nothing to panic about. And anyway

the public would not be in contact with the virus. The first to be

worried is the nurse or the doctor in charge; they would be the first

contaminated. "

 

So far, laboratories in 12 out of 18 countries that had unexpectedly

received samples containing the H2N2 " Asian " flu from CAP have

destroyed them, according to WHO. The H2N2 strain is similar to the

1957 flu virus that killed up to four million people around the world.

 

But Stohr played down the risks, saying the samples swiftly

deteriorate on exposure to room temperatures, water or sunlight. -

Agencies