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CDC chief urges virus safety checks

The head of the U.S. health agency said Wednesday that the government should restrict the handling of flu virus to more secure labs, as scientists around the world destroyed a deadly flu strain that had been sent to thousands of labs for testing.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said the agency has already recommended that change - a step not previously taken because flu virus has never been considered a possible bioterrorism weapon.

Gerberding's statements came less than 24 hours after the World Health Organization began urging the world's labs to destroy an almost 50-year-old pandemic flu virus. The germ was sent in proficiency testing kits to nearly 5,000 labs - mostly in the United States.

A Canadian lab alerted the WHO that the sample was from the 1957 flu pandemic, which killed between 1-million and 4-million people. It has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968, and anyone born after that date has little or no immunity to it.

The WHO said Canada, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore had already destroyed their samples, while Japan was doing the same. Taiwan and Germany also announced that they had destroyed all their vials.

[Last modified April 14, 2005, 01:17:13]