Question: What Has been the most dangerous virus you have seen?

Ian Hands-Portman answered on 11 Mar 2014:

This was asked on the chat and now I’ve had time to think I’ve changed my mind – the most dangerous I’ve work with is the flu virus. People don’t often think of it as a serious problem but it puts about 5 million people in hospital every year and kills half a million. New strains of flu virus are probably one of the worst disease threats we face.

Not a virus but a really nasty disease I regularly work with is CJD – the human form of mad cow disease. Your brain slowly disintegrates into a spongy substance taking up to a decade to kill you. It also takes years from being exposed to it to symptoms showing up. That was a full movie style containment lab with hoods, airlocks and the works as to study it we had to make a bacteria that made the disease in large quantities for us – not the kind of thing you’d want escaping!