Hundreds of vials containing live viruses have gone missing from a lab in Australia, prompting an investigation.

Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls announced today that 323 samples of live viruses – including Hendra virus, Lyssavirus and Hantavirus – had disappeared in 2021 due to “serious breaches of biosecurity protocols”.

The breach was discovered in August 2023, with nearly 100 missing vials containing the deadly Hendra virus. Two of the vials contained hantavirus, while 223 vials contained lyssavirus samples.

The Hendra virus was first discovered in the mid-1990s after it infected and killed several horses in Australia. Only a handful of people became ill after being infected by horses, but a large proportion of those infected died.

Hantavirus is carried by rodents and can cause Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS), which has a mortality rate of around 38 percent, while lyssavirus is similar to rabies and also has a very high mortality rate.

The lab was unable to conclude whether the viruses were destroyed or removed from secure storage, but it does not appear to have been stolen.

“There is no indication that they were taken from the lab. Second.” […] we have no evidence that the Hendra virus has been misused in any way in any research laboratory,” Nicholls told a news conference.

“Obviously all this kind of research is done in secret, but we’re not aware of it being used as a weapon in any way. The process of weaponizing a virus is very sophisticated and not something an amateur would do.”

The samples appear to have gone undetected after a freezer in which they were stored at a public health virology laboratory in Queensland broke down.

“It is this part of the transmission of these materials that is of concern,” Nicholls said, as reported by local news site ABC.

“They were moved to a functioning freezer without the appropriate paperwork being completed. The materials may have been removed from this secure storage and lost or otherwise undetected.”

According to a statement from the Queensland government, “there is no evidence of risk to the community from the breach” because the viruses would degrade very quickly and subsequently become harmless to humans.

“It is difficult to imagine a scenario where the public could be at risk,” Queensland health chief John Gerrard said in a statement.

“It is important to note that virus samples would degrade very quickly outside of a low-temperature freezer and become non-infectious.

Gerrard notes that the samples were incredibly unlikely to have been disposed of in geeral waste and were likely destroyed in an autoclave as per usual laboratory protocol.

“Importantly, there have been no cases of Hendra or Lyssavir among humans in Queensland in the last five years, and no human hantavirus infections have been reported in Australia,” Gerrard explained.

Andrew Preston, professor of microbial pathogenesis at the UK’s University of Bath, agreed.

“If these vials weren’t in an ultra-low temperature freezer, minus 80 degrees C [minus 112 F]a typical home freezer is minus 20 degrees C, viruses would not survive at that temperature, then they rapidly decay and lose infectivity, within days.”

“Theoretically, if someone were exposed to the contents of the vial, then they would be at risk of infection, but only during the time immediately after it was taken out of the freezer.”

An investigation into the breach has been launched to determine exactly how these viruses disappeared and what prevented the breach from being discovered for nearly two years.

“With such a serious breach of biosecurity protocols and potential missing infectious virus samples, Queensland Health must investigate what happened and how to prevent it from happening again,” Nicholls said in a statement.

“Part 9 of the investigation will ensure that nothing was overlooked in the response to this incident and will review the current policies and procedures in place at the lab today,” he said.

“I have been advised that Queensland Health has taken proactive measures since the breach was discovered, including retraining staff to ensure ongoing compliance with required regulations and auditing all relevant permits to ensure accountability and proper storage of materials.”

Update 11/12/2024 12:45 PM ET: This story has been updated with comments from Ian Jones and Andrew Preston.