Hundreds of vials containing samples of infectious diseases from an Australian lab are missing after "major breaches" and a government investigation is underway.
It happened at Queensland's virology lab, Health Minister Tim Nicholls announced. The laboratory provides state-wide specialist diagnostic services, surveillance and research for viruses and mosquito and tick-borne pathogens of medical importance.
Among the missing vials are Hendra virus, Lyssavirus and Hantavirus. The samples remain unaccounted for after the major breach of biosecurity controls.
The breaches were discovered last August but only revealed on Monday.
323 missing samples included 98 samples of Hendra virus, the Brisbane Times reported.
The laboratory has not been able to determine if the materials were removed from secure storage or destroyed, although there is no evidence of risk to the community from the breach, according to health officials.
Minister Nicholls said the public had a right to know about the incident and it was to make sure there wasn't another critical breach.
"With such a serious breach of biosecurity protocols and infectious virus samples potentially missing, Queensland Health must investigate what occurred and how to prevent it from happening again," Nicholls said.
Chief Health Officer Dr John Gerrard claimed there was no evidence of risk to the community.
"It's difficult to conceive of a scenario whereby the public could be at risk," Gerrard said. "Virus samples would degrade very rapidly outside a low temperature freezer and become non-infectious."
He noted that no Hendra or Lyssavirus cases have been detected among humans in Queensland over the past five years, and there have been no reports of Hantavirus infections in humans ever in Australia.
