The state health department predicted on Wednesday that the number of Colorado labs that received samples of a deadly flu virus would grow.
They were right.
On Thursday, the health department said 61 labs got samples of the H2N2 virus – up from an estimate of 19 Wednesday. Of those, 55 labs confirmed that they had destroyed it.
The state health department and officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say there is little threat to the public from the virus distribution.
Nevertheless, they are working to assure that all the virus, sent to nearly 5,000 labs worldwide, is safely destroyed.
The so-called Asian flu virus, which killed some 4 million people, has been out of circulation for decades, and people born after 1968 would have no immunity to it, health officials say.
Samples of it were sent to labs in 18 countries as part of routine testing of accredited medical and diagnostic laboratories.