CDC Employee Being Monitored for Ebola due to a Lab Error

An employee with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will be monitored for Ebola, the federal agency announced. According to the officials, a laboratory technician might have been exposed to the virus due to a lab error. Less than a dozen laboratory employees will be checked for possible exposure as well. The mistake occurred on Monday.

"There was no possible exposure outside the secure laboratory at CDC and no exposure or risk to the public," the agency said in a statement.

The CDC stated that the technician was working with Ebola specimens that were supposed to be inactivated. However, due to a mix-up, the samples actually contained live virus, which could have infected the employee. The employee wore gloves and a gown while handling the specimens, but did not wear a facemask.

Spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds stated that the risk of exposure was very low. The CDC will keep an eye out for symptoms, but will not quarantine the employee. The infection has an incubation period of 21 days.

"I am troubled by this incident in our Ebola research laboratory in Atlanta," the CDC director, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden said. "Thousands of laboratory scientists in more than 150 labs throughout CDC have taken extraordinary steps in recent months to improve safety."

"They [CDC] did not learn. They do not learn. They seem incapable of learning," Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University and an expert on biological weapons, said according to the New York Times. "C.D.C. labs that receive putatively inactivated samples still are working with them with no safety and security precautions beyond those at a dentist's office."

This is the third error that the Atlanta-based agency has made this year tied to mishandling samples. The other two cases involved anthrax and the avian influenza.