A lab in France announced that it lost at least 2,000 vials holding portions of the deadly SARS virus this week.
According to ABC News, the Pasteur Institute in Paris announced that officials noticed vials were missing earlier this month. They then got in touch with the National Security Agency of Medicines and Health Products in the European country. A press release on the event reported that the agency opened an investigation into the loss on April 8.
Dr. William Schaffner, who works at Vanderbilt University Medical Center as chair of preventative medicine, confirmed that fragments of the virus wouldn't present any immediate danger, but the loss of such a crucial piece of material did not reflect well on the lab's safety procedures.
"It's actually not in itself so scary, but you wonder about the procedures in that laboratory," Schaffner said. "Could that lab, and perhaps others, actually misplace vials that have the complete virus so that it might escape?"
Severe acute respiratory syndrome, better known by its acronym SARS, caused the deaths of almost 800 people during a 2003 epidemic that spanned four continents, ABC reported. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there haven't been any reported instances of SARS in the past 10 years.
SARS has been labeled a "select agent" in the United States, which means the virus has the "potential to pose a severe threat to both human and animal health, to plant health, or to animal and plant products," the CDC reported.
The Mayo Clinic describes SARS' symptoms as beginning with flu-like problems - chills, fever and sore throat - but in the following seven days, the fever can heighten, a dry cough will develop, and the victim will experience shortness of breath.
Schaffner told ABC that the French lab probably put the SARS virus fragments in a lab refrigerator, then left the contents for an extended period of time. He said he hoped that the vials were accidentally destroyed.
"It reminds us that each and every lab must have rigorous safety procedures," Schaffner stressed. "People must be trained, and there has to be good supervision."
