In addition to recent problems with anthrax and smallpox, high-path avian flu has now entered the mix.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) director, Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, has been asked by three top Republicans on the US House Energy Committee for several types of information on the recent breach of safety protocols resulting in possible exposure of lab personnel to Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax, according to Reuters today.
Testing to determine whether the vials contain live virus will take 2 weeks, the CDC said.
The CDC says some lab workers can discontinue antibiotic treatment and vaccination.
Early results of environmental tests at CDC labs are negative.
Nine more workers may have been exposed to Bacillus anthracis.
The CDC is monitoring and providing antibiotics to about 75 staffers over Bacillus anthracis concerns.
The World Health Assembly (WHA) again did not decide on when the last laboratory stocks of variola virus, the pathogen that causes smallpox, should be destroyed, Nature reported today on its news blog.
The debate over experiments that increase avian flu virus transmissibility heats up.
The lab, completed in 2008 but held up over challenges, cleared two more obstacles yesterday.
