French laboratory loses deadly SARS virus

IS there a deadly virus on the loose? Over 2000 samples of SARS have mysteriously gone missing from a high-security laboratory in Paris.

Over 2000 vials containing the SARS virus have gone missing from a laboratory in Paris, F

WE thought losing our car keys was bad but spare a thought for a laboratory in Paris that has admitted to misplacing more than 2000 vials containing the deadly SARS virus.

Following a routine inventory check at the Pasteur Institute in France it was discovered that 2349 tubes containing fragments of the virus that killed nearly 800 people in 2003 have disappeared.

It is not known how the samples were lost, or if they were stolen, but experts are baffled by how such a large number of samples went missing without causing suspicion considering the institute is regarded as one of the most high-security labs in the business.

When the SARS virus spread across Asia in 2003 surgical masks were commonplace to protect from infection.

SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, is an airborne virus that spread from China, through to Hong Kong and onto 30 countries, infecting 8273 people before being brought under control.

“We looked for the boxes everywhere,” Professor Bréchot from the Institute told Le Monde. “We went through the lists of all the people who have worked here for the past year and a half, including interns. We analysed their profiles to check there was no conflict of interest,” he said.

According to a statement by the research body there is no need to fear as they insist “the tubes concerned have no infectious potential” and “independent experts referred by health authorities have qualified the risk as ‘nil’”.

If you’re thinking this sounds like it could be part of the plot of the next Bond movie the idea that the samples could have been stolen for nefarious purposes have been quashed. Professor Bréchot claims “not a single vial” could have left the lab without being sterilised.

While an investigation continues, the general consensus is they were “inadvertently destroyed” while being transferred from refrigerators.