Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Influenza strain was sent to 23 private labs in state

Twenty-three private labs licensed by the state were sent a killer influenza virus.

Officials at each lab have been told to destroy it, said Dr. Brad Lee, the state's health officer.

"It should all be done now," Lee said.

Public health officials are monitoring lab workers to ensure they were not made ill during the disposal, he said.

Early last week, the state's two public health labs destroyed samples of what scientists call influenza A/H2N2. Lee then had to discover how many private labs in Nevada had been sent the virus.

More than 4,000 labs around the world were sent samples of the potentially deadly strain of influenza in testing kits designed to test a lab's proficiency in identifying viruses.

Microorganisms that can harm people are excluded from test panels.

The 1957 H2N2 "Asian flu" strain killed nearly 4 million people. It has not been included in flu vaccines since 1968.

Anyone born after that date has little or no immunity to it.