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A routine inventory at the prestigious French research body Institut Pasteur in Paris revealed it has lost some 2,300 tubes containing samples of the potentially deadly SARS virus.
France’s distinguished Institut Pasteur, which was among the first to isolate HIV in the 1980s, admitted on Monday that it has lost some 2,349 vials containing samples of the deadly SARS virus.
During a recent inventory researchers realized the vials were unaccounted for and so called in France’s drug and health safety agency "l'Agence nationale de sécurité du médicament et des produits de santé" to help with the search, according to a statement from Institut Pasteur.
The drug and health safety people spent four days, from April 4th-12th, doing an ‘in depth’ investigation at the unnamed lab in question and came up empty handed as well.
A routine inventory check at Paris' Pasteur Institute revealed that 2,349 tubes containing fragments of the virus responsible for the deaths of 774 people in 2002 were missing, the centre named after French chemist Louis Pasteur said.
The institute was quick to reassure the public and said that the contents of the missing vials had no infectious potential. They contained only part of the virus and had no ability to spread.
butcherguy
Ooops. We aren't sure what happened to those darned vials.
The Pasteur Institute in Paris has asked the authorities to investigate the disappearance of more than 2,000 vials containing fragments of the SARS virus, while insisting that missing samples represent no danger to the public.
The institute said it discovered the loss of 29 boxes containing 2,349 tiny vials during a routine inventory check.
The vials containing the SARS fragments were kept in a laboratory known as P3.
Professor Bréchot said that "not a single vial" could have left the lab without being sterilized. The Institute closed the lab Monday.
The Institute said that tests on the samples, collected from people infected with SARS, had all proved negative in 2003 and that the refrigerator holding the samples had malfunctioned and defrosted in 2012, which would have killed the virus.
Professor Bréchot aid that the disappearance of the SARS samples was "unacceptable" and that the institute would conduct an inventory of its "micro-organisms and toxins" within the next month.
auroraaus
How on Earth could one lose 29 boxes? Without being seen?
FlyersFan
A record keeping problem? Then the people handing this stuff aren't as smart as we'd want them to be. Again .. NOT GOOD.
candlestick
Almost see as:
French Scientists: We've sold SARS Virus Vials
crazyewok
candlestick
Almost see as:
French Scientists: We've sold SARS Virus Vials
I don't see what being french has anything to do with it.
Iv been major screw ups from both Brits and Americans.