Global Security Newswire

Restrictions aimed at protecting the United States from biological terrorism slowed down North American efforts to identify and respond to the swine flu outbreak, the Financial Times reported yesterday (see GSN, April 30).

Rules on bringing biological materials into the United States led officials in Mexico, where the outbreak is believed to have originated, last month to first send up to 200 samples from patients for analysis at Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg.

Mexico later sent several samples to the Atlanta-based and much closer U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The federal health agency had already studied infections involving the virus but had not linked the cases to the Mexican outbreak.

“There are always administrative procedures that can take time. And, given the urgency of needing a quicker response, we called Winnipeg, where they told us that they could do it in a day,” Mexican Health Minister José Angel Córdova said.

To date, authorities have confirmed swine flu infections in more than 2,000 people in at least 23 nations. The virus has killed at least 42 people in Mexico and two in the United States (Jack/Thomson, Financial Times, May 6).