Are deadly virus' loose in Katrina's wake?

Something that has been worrying me is the fact that, in the wake of Katrina's destructive force, is the release of exotic and deadly virus'. I have watched the news avidly, as many other ATSers have, and I have heard a lot of discussion about the contamination in the floodwaters. Mostly, the discourse has been about ecoli, molds and chemical contaminants. However, I have heard nothing about the deadlier potential that the destruction may have released.

Tulane University, in New Orleans, housed the TextDelta Regional Primate Research Center. Opened in 1964, the center is largest of the eight centers in the National Primate Research Center program funded by the National Institutes of Health. The Tulane center housed several thousand primates of varying species. the Tulane National Primate Research Center raised, bred and utilized the primates in their focused research in infectious diseases, including biodefens-erelated work, gene therapy, reproductive biology and neuroscience.

The National Primate Research Center has a level three containment unit which did research in HIV as well research on some of the most virulent strains of diseases such as Ebola as well as other exotic viral organisms.

My questions are: Are these primates, which were housed in outdoor containment units, free? What is the state of the level three containment unit and the deadly diseases that were held there? Have the diseases held within these units at large?

Could this be the reason that rescue efforts were so slow in developing? Is this the reason that survivors of Katrina are being housed in camps that, for all intents and purposes, have been designed to house these survivors for, as has been reported, periods up to five months. Is this really an effort to quarantine the survivors because of the possiblity that they have been infected....and by what?



[edit on 9/11/2005 by benevolent tyrant]

[edit on 9/11/2005 by benevolent tyrant]