Scientists race to stay ahead of new bird flu virus

A precious package arrived at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last Thursday afternoon. Inside, packed in dry ice to keep it frozen, was a vial containing millions of viruses derived from a 35-year-old Chinese housewife who died last Tuesday of respiratory and kidney failure. The package was addressed to the CDC’s top flu virologist, Nancy Cox. “Once we got the virus, we took it immediately to the appropriate level of bio containment,” Cox tells Shots. That would be a so-called bio safety level 3 lab, where researchers can keep this demonstrably dangerous virus under tight control. “We unpacked it from the various levels of protection — that is, containers in which it is placed in order to ensure that it doesn’t spill,” Cox says. “And then the work actually began.” There’s a lot of urgent work to do, according to scientists in far-flung labs, who also got samples of the virus at...