The latest case of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), confirmed 17 December in a Taiwanese medical researcher, has again raised alarms that the lab—and not the presumed animal reservoir—may be the most likely source for reintroduction of the virus. It is the second time a researcher has been infected with the virus through lab contamination since the outbreak was contained last July. “This kind of thing should not happen in a BSL-4 [biosafety level 4] lab,” says Hiroshi Oshitani, head of the SARS Response Team in the Manila regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO). “This kind of accident is avoidable.”
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Dennis Normile (2004) studied this question.