PLEASE SEE March 17th Update of this story. Some of the early newspaper accounts had incorrect details.
A Few More Details On The Baxter Mishap
# 2836
By now, most of my readers are aware that Baxter International in Austria accidentally sent `vaccine samples' contaminated with the H5N1 virus to labs in In the Czech Republic, Slovenia, and Germany.
The problem was only discovered after lab ferrets began dying after receiving the vaccine (see Ferreting Out A Problem In the Laboratory).
According to Baxter's director of global bioscience communications, Christopher Bona, the contaminated substance wasn't a `vaccine', but a `liquid virus product'.
There are still a great many unanswered questions.
Many of these questions are posed by the Revere's at Effect Measure this morning.
Michelle Fay Cortez and Jason Gale of Bloomberg had early coverage of the story in Baxter’s Vaccine Research Sent Bird Flu Across European Labs.
And today, the Canadian Press has a story on it as well. There's no byline, but this appears to be written by Helen Branswell. It is a long, but informative read.
Follow the links to read it in its entirety.
Officials investigate how bird flu viruses were sent to unsuspecting labs
Provided by: Canadian Press
Written by: Medical Reporter, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Feb. 25, 2009
Officials are trying to get to the bottom of how vaccine manufacturer Baxter International Inc. made "experimental virus material" based on a human flu strain but contaminated with the H5N1 avian flu virus and then distributed it to an Austrian company.
That company, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then disseminated the supposed H3N2 virus product to subcontractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany. Authorities in the four European countries are looking into the incident, and their efforts are being closely watched by the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Control.
Though it appears none of the 36 or 37 people who were exposed to the contaminated product became infected, the incident is being described as "a serious error" on the part of Baxter, which is on the brink of securing a European licence for an H5N1 vaccine. That vaccine is made at a different facility, in the Czech Republic.
"For this particular incident ... the horse did not get out (of the barn)," Dr. Angus Nicoll of the ECDC said from Stockholm.
"But that doesn't mean that we and WHO and the European Commission and the others aren't taking it as seriously as you would any laboratory accident with dangerous pathogens - which you have here."
Accidental release of a mixture of live H5N1 and H3N2 viruses - if that indeed happened - could have resulted in dire consequences. Nicoll said officials still aren't 100 per cent sure the mixture contained live H5N1 viruses. But given that ferrets exposed to the mixture died, it likely did.
(Continue . . .)
