Monday, March 25, 2013
First take one deadly virus
Then put it in a lab for study, then manage to lose a vial of said virus. You are now in Texas.
A virus that authorities worry could easily be weaponized as an aerosol went missing from a medical research facility in south Texas, an official at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston said Saturday.But have no fear. Despite the loss of Risk Level 4 materiel, the crack management team at the lab is on top of it.
About a quarter of a teaspoon of frozen viral material went missing last Wednesday, UTMB President David L. Callender explained in prepared text. The virus is an exotic strain from south America called Guanarito, which can cause a life-threatening condition that includes fever, convulsions and hemmhoraging.
“The only way it could pose a risk is if it were stolen and that’s unlikely,” UTMB scientific director Scott Weaver told The Houston Chronicle. “We don’t think anything that happened this past week endangers the community. We think this is an error that any one facility is inevitable and we are going to improve to prevent this in the future.”Nothing to see here, let's move along now.
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