Swine flu shipment explodes on train in Switzerland

 [Note: The following translation from Babelfish is rough, but should give you the general idea. The original story is here.]

In a intertown center course between Berne and Freiburg a container with pig flu viruses exploded yesterday. That can happen daily. Also at the post office.

The viruses were intended for the national flu center in Geneva. There a test should be developed for the diagnosis of the pig flu on behalf the Federal Office for health (BAG).

A Geneva employee had fetched eight Fläschchen in Zurich, in order to transport it by course to Geneva. Five of it contained the pig flu viruses, in three further were of nucleic acid.

Dry ice wrongly places

These Fläschchen were hermetically packed and with dry ice - firm carbon dioxide - cooled. The viruses were according to the usual rules packed, said Laurent emperor, director/conductor Geneva laboratories for Virologie on Monday evening before the media.

However was the dry ice erroneous-proves within instead of outside of the vacuum placed. It thawed out, and inside the packing a positive pressure developed. Finally the package exploded. The feeder and a woman suffered light injuries.

Not the dangerous virus

According to emperor it concerned with the samples viruses of the pig flu trunk H1N1. With the aggressive pig flu virus raging at present these are however not identical.

Also the feeder knew that it did not carry dangerous viruses. It informed immediately the train crew. After forty minutes also the SBB and the authorities were informed about the incident.

After information of Patrick Mathys, Leiter of the section Pandemievorbereitung in the BAG, concerned it viruses of purely porzinen origin. These could be transferred to humans, released however only easy flu symptoms. The viruses were used with the development of the test as a check. Transport in a passenger course corresponded to the regulations in the middle according to Mathys, how they are valid for the security level 2. Me exception of the dry ice packing actually everything ran correctly, said the BAG expert and spoke of human failure.

Specialist sent

The police stopped the course before the entry into the station Lausanne and sent specialists for the clarification of the situation into the course. It concerned precautionary measures, communicated themselves the Waadtländer canton police.
It regrets the incident, continued to say emperors. It reminded however of the fact that each day viruses with the course were transported. Some are even by post office on the way.

The explosion of yesterday occurred shortly before the station Freiburg. Before Lausanne the course was placed for several hours on a siding. The 61 passengers, who were in the course car concerned, became seperate during one hour, until an infection could be completely excluded.