Investigators suspect that all nine reported SARS cases in the
recent Beijing-Anhui outbreak are linked to the China Center for
Disease Prevention and Control's (CDC's) Institute of Virology,
which had been conducting experiments using the live SARS
coronavirus.
But the two workers in the institute who were infected are not
known to have worked with live samples of the virus. Questions
remain as to how the disease broke out again last month.
Zeng Guang, the CDC's leading contagious disease expert, said
two investigations are now being conducted to determine the cause
of the latest outbreak: one by a joint team of experts from the World Health Organization and
China's Ministry of Public Health, and the other by a team from the
Virology Institute. Neither team has yet been able to draw any
conclusions.
"The research lab of the two infected medical researchers is not
close to that where the live SARS coronavirus is kept. There are no
ventilation ducts connecting these two labs. Since it is only
spring, the central air conditioner was not operating yet. So the
SARS virus must have spread some other way."
Since the end of last year, SARS has resurfaced four times in
Asia, and three of the outbreaks were believed to have originated
in research labs. Lab safety has once again become a major
concern.
Says Zeng, "Lab safety should be considered from two angles:
first, whether the equipment and facilities for the lab are up to
standard; and second, whether there are loopholes in facility
management. Management not only involves administrative rules, but
also technical issues. For example, since we still don't know much
about SARS, there is no set regulation on how to kill the live SARS
coronavirus when conducting lab research."
Zeng said more tests must be done on the laboratory samples
before a conclusion can be made. Protecting the health of
researchers and perfecting hospitals' early diagnosis systems are
also issues that require examination.
(Cri.com May 11, 2004)