SARS outbreak in China due to poor laboratory security
Experts have been saying that studying live coronavirus samples in poor laboratory practice conditions constitutes a serious security threat to the country, its neighbours and the world. They say laboratories in China should improve their practices.
It is worrying that the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot account for the whereabouts of live SARS virus samples within and outside the USA. The chances these viruses could end up in the hands of terrorists or just simply, incompetents, is troubling many security authorities around the world.
As more and more labs and agencies swap samples of viruses and bacteria, keeping track of all the movements of some of the most dangerous bugs in the world is becoming virtually impossible.
The National Institute of Virology, Beijing, China is to blame for the latest SARS outbreak in China. From this lab, the virus found its way to the eastern province of Anhui.
The WHO is baffled how the virus moved from one part of the laboratory to another and infected people. The research on the SARS virus was in a Bio-Safety-Level 3 (BSL 3) environment. This, in theory, should make it impossible for the virus to get out, but it did and leaked and infected two workers who were at the other end of the building. It is worrying that WHO experts have absolutely no idea how the virus got out.
The SARS virus is completely different from AIDS or Hepatitis. AIDS and Hepatitis do not travel in tiny droplets of water in the air and shoot down your lungs when you breathe in. AIDS and Hepatitis need human contact, direct blood-to-blood contact. The level of security needed to contain the SARS virus should be second to none. According to the experts out there, security was pretty shoddy.
Labs like that one, with poor security systems, are everywhere and carry out experiments with so many bacteria and viruses that some say a Chernovyl style catastrophe is just a question of time. Wouldn't it be ironic if a lab, created by humans to fight natural infections, becomes the source of an infection that spreads all over the world.
Scientists and inspectors are starting to ask for a system that could register laboratories all over the world. There could be a system of licences and certificates with levels of security and competence.
SARS focar în China, datoritã sãraci laborator de securitate - SARS outbreak in China due to poor laboratory security - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate