Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory is undergoing a strict review of its security procedures after a scientist working there stole vials of the Ebola virus and tried to smuggle them into the United States.
Konan Michel Yao, 42, was arrested four months ago at the Manitoba-North Dakota border with 22 vials of the Ebola virus. Customs officials found the vials tucked inside in a glove, wrapped in aluminum foil and placed in a plastic bag with electrical wires. The package was stashed away in the trunk of the scientist’s car.
Officials at the National Microbiology Laboratory became aware of the missing vials only recently, at the beginning of May. Dr. Frank Plummer, head of the Winnipeg lab, said the biological materials Yao stole posed no public health risk. “The only thing (Yao) could have done with it would be to make an Ebola vaccine,” Dr. Plummer told reporters.
Yao did not have security clearance to work with high-level pathogens such as the Ebola virus. But he was allowed to work on an Ebola vaccine project in the facility’s special pathogens unit.
The lab does not search scientists working there before they leave the facility, a procedure Dr. Plummer defends. “I don’t think that would be appropriate,” he said. “At some point you really have to rely on trust of the individuals and the integrity of the individuals who work in the building.”
Adding that such a security breach had never happened before at the facility, Dr. Plummer added that the vials went unnoticed for so long because it is impossible to account for the tens of thousands of them containing non-infectious material in the laboratory’s refrigerators and freezers.
“We would never try to have an inventory of every little vial that we have in the laboratory,” he said. “It’s absolutely impossible, and no other laboratory in the world would have one inventory of that kind that would allow them to detect this.”
The lab is playing a lead role in testing for the new swine flu virus. It has tested more than 400 specimens from Mexico and has mapped out the genetic sequence of the H1N1 virus.
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scary!!
What do you expect with her eyes looking like that! She can't see what she is doing!
Yeah, Lamont! Your mom has AIDS!
Don’t blame us, Konan isn”t really a Canadian name!
"…working there stole vials of the Ebola virus and tried to smuggle them into the United States"
This is a gross misrepresentation. The vials contained Ebola genetic material, i.e. genes, not the virus. To make the virus, he would have had to have the entire genome, which it does sound like he did (judging from other less alarmist accounts, he did not) and he would need to have access to facilities to express it in human tissue cultures, and not have any oversight.
Brian: Marry her!