A frightening breach of security resulted in the loss of hundreds of vials containing deadly viruses from an Australian laboratory.  Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls announced that 323 samples of live viruses including Hendra virus, lyssavirus and hantavirus which are deadly pathogens, went mysteriously missing from a Queensland laboratory.

The vials went missing in 2021, but the potentially deadly violation was only discovered in August 2023, and revealed to the public just recently, according to Newsweek.

Hendra virus has a 57% fatality rate in humans, say experts, and was identified in the 1990’s after infecting and killing several Australian horses. Hantavirus is transmitted by rodents and causes potentially deadly Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS). This virus has a mortality rate of around 38%. Lyssavirus also has a very high mortality rate and is similar to rabies.

Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading in the U.K., explained that although these are serious viruses that can be deadly to humans, infection occurs only through hand-to-mouth contamination, so the risk of spread is limited to direct contact.

Ther viruses do not appear to have been stolen from the lab, say authorities, but rather misplaced after a storage freezer in Queensland’s Public Health Virology Laboratory broke down and the sample vials were transferred elsewhere. Nicholls added that it also does not appear that the Hendra virus has been weaponized.

“They were transferred to a functioning freezer without the appropriate paperwork being completed,” he said. “The materials have been removed from that secure storage and lost, or otherwise unaccounted for.” Experts say that there is no risk to the community because of the breach because the viruses degrade quickly outside a low-temperature freezer and subsequently are harmless to people.

There have been no reports of Hendra virus or lyssavirus cases among humans in Queensland over the past five years, and there has never been a report of Hantavirus infections in humans even in Australia, said Queensland Chief Health Officer John Gerrard.

A full investigation of the breach is underway to find out exactly how these viruses went missing and why there was a two-year delay in discovering the incident.