14.07.2014

A US government laboratory mistakenly mixed an H9N2 avian influenza strain with an highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza and shipped it to another lab. No one was endangered by the mixed flu strain. Earlier this year a culture of non-pathogenic avian influenza was unintentionally cross-contaminated at the CDC influenza laboratory with the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of influenza and shipped to a BSL-3 select-agent laboratory operated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).