Laboratory Mishap

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29956, 18 October 1962, Page 16

Laboratory Mishap

(New Zealand Press Association)

DUNEDIN, October 17. A fourth-year . student at the University of Otago Medical School received a splash of cowpox vaccine virus in his left eye in a laboratory accident yesterday afternoon. Extensive precautions were taken to block infection and save his sight. The 21-year-old student, Mr Colin B. Fitzpatrick, of Papakura (Auckland). is cheerful, although he will not know definitely for 10 days whether there will be any ill effects. He carried on normal work and preparations for examinations in three weeks, but slept at the hospital overnight to be treated with the special chemical flown urgently from Australia.

Professor J. A. R. Miles, head of the department bf microbiology at the Medical School, said students were handling vaccine virus (cowpox) which is used for protection against smallpox. “The boy is perfectly flt so far, and we are hoping that

there will be no danger. The eye could become diseased. We don’t know how big the risk is, but it is big enough to take every possible precaution,” he said. Mr Fitzpatrick told a reporter that he was bending down holding the membrane of an egg open for a girl student to inject the vaccine virus from a dropper when he was splashed Tomorrow morning a special solution of live antibodies formed in the body after vaccination with such a virus will •be flown from Wellington and dropped in his eye. Professor Miles thought the student should also be treated with a substance not available in New Zealand which kills viruses without attacking human tissues, and telegraphed the Australian National University, Canberra. Scheduled airline services could not bring the chemicals until Friday, but the Australian Government sent an R.A.A.F. Canberra bomber with the package. The package arrived In Dunedin about midnight and Dr. J. C. Parr, head of the eye department at the hospital, treated the student’s ■eye with one of the chemicals. Professor Miles said that all three substances were clinically still in the experimental stage, although they had all been used on humans with success in killing certain viruses. The Medical Officer of Health at Dunedin, Dr. J. Coppiestone, said be thought it necessary to allay any fears the public have, and reassure people that there i was no danger of 'an outbreak of smallpox.