The US Centers for Disease Control is considering adding the SARS virus to the list of 鈥渟elect agents鈥� it regards as potential bioweapons. In the US, researchers working with pathogens on the list, including anthrax and Ebola, must register with authorities.
The concern follows a series of incidents in which lab workers have been infected by the virus. The latest, in China, sparked an outbreak in which nine people have developed SARS so far. As the disease has not reappeared from other sources, labs may now be the only source of the virus that caused last year鈥檚 epidemic, in which nearly 800 people died and billions of dollars were lost.
CDC officials admitted last week that the virus was not made a select agent last year, for fear this might have slowed research into treatments and vaccines 鈥� a tacit admission that the controls on select agent do impede research.
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