Julie Gerberding, the director of the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on Wednesday sought to assure the public that the inadvertent mailing of a potentially deadly virus to labs around the world poses minimal risks to public health. Meridian Bioscience Inc., a U.S. company, had sent out testing kits to over 3,000 laboratories worldwide that included the 1957 H2N2 flu virus strain. Gerberding said there is no evidence the virus has impacted the U.S. and assured the public in a press conference in Atlanta that although the situation poses a "low threat," CDC is "not taking any chances" and is doing all it can to make sure all testing kits are being destroyed. The kits were sent out beginning last September as part of the laboratory accreditation process on behalf of the College of American Pathologists and other groups. Gerberding said a global cooperation effort is underway to control the situation. The kits had been sent to 18 countries, mostly in Europe and Asia. CDC first received notice that the virus was included in the kits on March 26.
