Swine flu scareVirulent H5N1 mistakenly mixed with H3N2
Austrian branch of vaccine company Baxter sent a batch of ordinary human H3N2 flu to Avir lab, also in Austria; a Czech affiliate of Avir conducted tests on ferrets, which died; investigation shows that the H3N2 batch contained live virulent H5N1 virus
Accident in medical research labs occur. Here is an example of an accident which occurred last month: Virulent H5N1 bird flu was sent out by accident from an Austrian lab last year and given to ferrets in the Czech Republic before anyone realized. As well as the risk of it escaping into the wild, the H5N1 got mixed with a human strain, which might have spawned a hybrid that could unleash a pandemic.
Last December, the Austrian branch of U.S. vaccine company Baxter sent a batch of ordinary human H3N2 flu, altered so it could not replicate, to Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, also in Austria. In February a lab in the Czech Republic working for Avir alerted Baxter that, unexpectedly, ferrets inoculated with the sample had died. It turned out the sample contained live H5N1, which Baxter uses to make vaccine. The two seem to have been mixed in error.
Markus Reinhard of Baxter says no one was infected because the H3N2 was handled at a high level of containment. Ab Osterhaus of Erasmus University in the Netherlands says: “We need to go to great lengths to make sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen.”
