Laboratory-acquired SARS raises worries on biosafety.

A case of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in a male laboratory worker in Taiwan has prompted concern over the role of laboratory material in the spread of the disease.

The case was confirmed on December 17 in a 44-year-old researcher who had been testing herbal remedies against coronavirus at the Institute of Preventive Medicine, National Defence University, Taipei. He is Taiwan's first case since the outbreak that killed 37 people on the island earlier in 2003.

On December 7 the man, known only as Lieutenant-Colonel Chan, flew to a conference in Singapore. He became ill after returning home on December 10. 6 days later he was admitted to hospital and diagnosed with SARS. Although Chan was not in the contagious phase when he travelled, 90 people who had been in contact with him in Taiwan and Singapore were quarantined until December 23. None of them were infected.

According to an investigation appointed by the Taiwan Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Taipei, Chan was most likely to have come into contact with the virus on December 6 while cleaning waste liquid that had spilled in a chamber in his biosafety level 4 laboratory. In response, the CDC began comprehensive inspections of all Taiwanese SARS research laboratories.

Maria Cheng, SARS spokesperson at the WHO, Geneva, Switzerland, says that although the agency has not changed their general guidelines for handling the SARS virus, they urge countries to make inventories of all samples held by laboratories working with the virus. “This case has underlined the necessity for the careful handling of samples of this virus”, she says. The WHO recommends the use of guidelines approved at the WHO laboratory workshop on October 22, 2003 (http://www.who.int/csr/sars/guidelines/en/SARSLabmeeting.pdf)

Hitoshi Oshitani, head of the SARS response team at the WHO's Western Pacific Regional office, Manila, Philippines, adds: “We don't know how many laboratories are working with live SARS virus at the moment or where they all are. At the least, each government should know of all the labs working with the virus in their country so as to make sure they have the appropriate facilities…It is still difficult to interrupt animal-to-human transmission completely, but we should be able to avoid laboratory transmission of SARS. If the appropriate procedures are followed, nothing like this should happen”.