Nothing comes of suspicious package at Winnipeg virology lab: Knowledge Driven Revolution

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Streets around Winnipeg's federal virology lab were briefly shut down Friday evening as emergency officials investigated a suspicious package in a car at the facility's parking lot.

However, after just a couple hours of investigation, the police tape was taken down and bomb squad and haz-mat teams were sent home. There were slightly conflicting stories as to how the package ended up at the Level 4 lab, which is one of a handful in the world cleared to handle such deadly material as the Ebola virus.

One spokesperson for the Canadian Centre for Human and Animal Health, as the lab is officially known, said the unusual package was received at the post office and was brought to the lab against usual protocol.

However, another official said the package had been delivered to the lab's community liaison office and someone there had decided to bring it to the main office, where staff didn't know what the package contained. They then contacted emergency officials.

The lab itself was never evacuated.

A worker at the facility told radio station CJOB the package looked like an old piece of luggage.

The incident came the same day as Toronto police temporarily shut down two major highways as they removed several letter bombs from an east-end neighbourhood and took them to an isolated site near the waterfront for detonation.

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