The incident occurred March 21, causing the lab’s exhaust fans to stop working. Despite the malfunction, freezers containing pathogens were not affected, according to the report. The ventilation system outage lasted roughly eight hours, and BU reported the malfunction to the proper authorities within 24 hours. However, the university didn’t make the malfunction public until this week, after an engineering firm provided a preliminary report on the problem and BU’s response.
Even though the malfunction happened in March, BU won’t start up research in the affected labs until the engineering firm completes its investigation and Boston’s public health commission reviews the subsequent report.
According to the NEIDL’s website, the lab is “part of a national network of secure facilities studying infectious diseases that are — or have the potential to become — major public health concerns.”
More articles on lab safety:
CDC worker possibly infected with laboratory-acquired Salmonella
CDC’s 6 public health threats in focus for 2016
Possible Ebola exposure in CDC lab
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