Smallpox Samples Slated For Immediate Destruction Are Still Intact, Pending Red Tape
Officials from the World Health Organization are supposed to witness the destruction, but they're a bit busy right now.
After U.S. government researchers discovered six forgotten vials of smallpox in a freezer this past June, the plan was to destroy the vials. That’s still the plan… but the demolition date has been pushed back, Nature News reports.
The actual destruction should be fairly easy, biosecurity consultant Erik Heegaard told Popular Science in July. (See more of his, and other experts’, insights into deadly, forgotten samples).) Smallpox can killed by autoclaving, then incinerating it. However, officials from the World Health Organization are supposed to witness the destruction of the forgotten U.S. vials and the WHO is a bit busy right now with Ebola. Nature News reports:
Meanwhile, the vials are being kept in a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention facility in Atlanta, Georgia, which is one of the two places in the world authorized to store smallpox, according to international agreement.
Check out Nature for more on the fate of not just the forgotten vials, but smallpox samples that officials are deliberately storing in the U.S. and Russia.