Reports from the United States discloses that some staff at a Center for Disease Control (CDC) laboratory in Atlanta may have been exposed to the deadly Ebola virus.
A CDC report confirms that a lab technician and a small number of employees will be monitored for signs of infections over the next 21 days.
CDC officials say these individuals may have been exposed to the virus on Christmas eve after a high-security lab, at a facility in Atlanta, sent samples of the virus to another laboratory. The sample virus was supposed to have been deactivated but was left at a hall alive and was transfered to a second lab that was not equiped to handle the live virus.
The technician who received and worked on the live virus is said to have gloves and a gown but no mask, which raises fear of infection.
The incident was reported on Christmas day.
Official records state that dangerous samples of anthrax and flu have been mishandled at the same CDC facility in June.
Officials are complaining that the situation is troubling and affects the efficiency of the CDC as a scientific research center.
It is unclear how the sample virus got to the primary CDC facility in Atlanta although press reports claim that it was sent from West Africa where Ebola has killed over 7,500 people.
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