If the Fourth World War will be fought with stones and sticks, the third will surely use viruses and bacteria.
What happened on April 2, 1979 in Sverdlovsk, in the former Soviet Union, was nothing more than proof of something that had been suspected for a long time: biological weapons of mass destruction are a reality.
On that date, in military complex number 19, there was an explosion that accidentally released a few milligrams of spores of Bacillus anthracis. A few days later, 96 people fell ill with anthrax; 69 of whom died. This was the worst epidemic of human anthrax acquired by inhalation of spores recorded to date. For years, the authorities of the former Soviet Union argued that the epidemic was caused by the consumption of meat contaminated with anthrax bacilli, a situation that occurs very occasionally, especially in regions where this bacillus lives naturally, such as the case of Sverdlovsk (today Ekaterinburg). However, in May 1992, Boris Yeltsin admitted that biological weapons, anthrax among them, were being developed in Sverdlovsk. That same year, Dr. Ken Alibek, who was chief scientist from 1988 to 1992 of “Biopreparat”, the Soviet military institution in charge of the development of biological weapons, emigrated to the United States and confirmed that Russia possesses weapons for widespread biological warfare. scale. This type of war is not new and in fact has been used on multiple occasions since ancient times. The Romans threw dead animals into their enemies’ water supplies in order to contaminate them. The Tatars, in the 14th century, threw plague-infected corpses with catapults over the walls of the city of Kaffa, hoping to infect its inhabitants. During the so-called French and Indian War (occurred from 1754 to 1763 and in which France and Great Britain clashed for control of territories in part of what is now Canada and the United States), the British army gave the American Indians, allies from the French, blankets that had been used by people sick with smallpox, thus starting an epidemic that decimated many tribes. During the 1930s, in the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese used the plague as a weapon, fortunately without much success.
In World War I, Germany used anthrax against horses and cattle supplied to the Allied forces by Spain, Norway, Argentina, Romania, and—even before they became involved in the war in 1917—the United States. During World War II, the Russians are suspected of using tularemia against the Germans during the siege of Stalingrad; This disease is caused by bacteria Francisella tularensis and is usually transmitted through tick bites, but can also be acquired by drinking contaminated water or by being in contact with the meat of infected mammals (mainly rabbits); Tularemia can present in various forms, including a very serious type of pneumonia. In this same war, the Japanese used biological weapons against the Chinese (again without much success) and also experimented with them on American prisoners of war. At the end of the war, the United States government agreed with the Japanese not to put their scientists on trial for war crimes, in exchange for sharing the results of such experiments! The data thus obtained enriched the US government’s biological weapons program, which began in 1942. In countries such as Canada, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, biological weapons programs expanded after the war and gained momentum during the war. cold War. This growth stopped, at least officially, with the signing of the treaty that emerged during the 1972 Toxic and Biological Weapons Convention, which prohibits the use and development of biological weapons. One of the weaknesses of the document is that no verification mechanism is established. Although this treaty was signed by 140 nations, China, Vietnam, Laos, India, Bulgaria, Iraq, Iran, Taiwan, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, Egypt, Israel, Japan, the United States and some countries are suspected of The former Soviet bloc still has biological weapons development programs and some of them even have large quantities in storage.
What has recently alarmed the authorities of many countries is that certain terrorist groups already have access to biological weapons. For example, in 1995 it was discovered in Japan that the cult Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) responsible for the attack on the Tokyo subway with the nerve gas Sarin, also developed biological weapons and attempted to use them on at least eight occasions. It is even known that in October 1992, its leader, Shoko Asahara, and 40 other members traveled to Zaire supposedly to help Ebola victims but their objective was probably to obtain samples of the lethal virus. In 1997 alone, nearly 100 terrorist threats were investigated in the United States, 50 of which alleged the involvement of biological agents.
tiny killers
To try to understand why biological weapons have proliferated, it is useful that we define what is meant by a biological weapon and then what are the advantages and disadvantages of its use. We understand biological warfare as the use of diseases produced by microorganisms or bioactive agents (toxins) in order to damage or annihilate the enemy’s military forces, their civilian populations or contaminate their water or food sources. To make a biological weapon theoretically any pathogenic microorganism can be used. For example, in 1984 in Dallas (Oregon), the religious sect Rajneeshi contaminated with bacteria Salmonella the salad bars of a restaurant chain. As a result, 751 people had to be hospitalized for more or less severe gastrointestinal discomfort; Fortunately on that occasion no one died. But from a practical point of view, only a small number of microorganisms have the potential to be used effectively as biological weapons. It must be taken into account that the chosen microorganism must be able to be cultivated in large quantities and be able to be easily dispersed (preferably as an aerosol); It must be highly infectious and preferably able to be spread from person to person. Another requirement is that the disease can be started with low doses of the chosen organism, since many times it is not enough for this purpose for a single virus or bacteria to infect a person. Microorganisms with the potential to be used as weapons must be stable in the environment, in order to ensure their permanence as pathogenic agents and, finally, the existence or not of preventive or therapeutic measures must be taken into account.
The manual of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mentions 31 organizations with a real potential to be used as weapons. The list includes smallpox, anthrax, plague, botulism, tularemia, typhus, Q fever, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, Ebola and influenza. Let us remember that this last disease killed about 25 million people around the world in 1918. Of these 31 organisms, smallpox and anthrax are the ones that can most easily be converted into highly efficient biological weapons.
The threat of smallpox
Smallpox is a very serious infectious viral disease; Of every 100 people who contract it, 30 die, but it is known that in some populations mortality has reached 90%. Survivors may be left blind or blurred-eyed, and with horrible scars that will remind them of the terrible disease for the rest of their days. Thanks to a very intense vaccination campaign worldwide, no new cases have been reported since 1978. The last known fatal case occurred that year, in one of the five high-security laboratories that had samples of the virus. In 1980 the World Health Organization declared smallpox the first human disease to be completely eradicated from the face of the Earth. However, there are still two samples of the lethal virus in two high-security laboratories. One of them is located at the Vector facilities in Novosibirsk, Russia and the other at the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, United States. These samples were supposed to have been destroyed in June 1999; However, both Russia and the United States changed their minds at the last minute and refused to do so. The decision of both countries is due to the fact that each suspects that the other has stored this virus in sufficient quantity to use it as a biological weapon. There are also fears that the Russians have provided smallpox samples to North Korea. In short, these samples have been preserved exclusively for their war potential.
Using smallpox as a weapon would cause havoc in the population, since being considered an eradicated disease, vaccination schedules no longer contemplate it. It is very likely that today all those under 20 years of age are not vaccinated. What’s worse, there is no longer anyone producing this vaccine on an industrial scale, nor is it in stock in sufficient quantities to deal with an outbreak, no matter how small. To appreciate the magnitude of the problem, it is enough to mention that in 1947 eight cases of smallpox appeared in New York; In order to stop the incipient epidemic, it was necessary to administer six million vaccines in one week. If the problem arose today, there would be no way to deal with it. Fortunately, obtaining the smallpox virus is extremely difficult, so causing an epidemic with it is practically out of the reach of terrorist groups, unless they are supported by a government that has the virus.
The terrible anthrax
Unlike smallpox, the bacteria Bacillus anthracis, The causative agent of anthrax, it is found naturally in many regions of the world including Central and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and some regions of Europe. This allows any military or terrorist group to collect and store this bacteria without much difficulty. Saddam Hussein took a simpler path: he purchased the pathogenic agents from a US biotechnology company.
Anthrax is a disease of warm-blooded animals, but when it affects humans it is especially malignant. This disease is considered occupational, since it is only acquired by those people who are exposed to dead animals or their products.
In humans it can present in three forms: as cutaneous, gastrointestinal or pulmonary anthrax. Cutaneous occurs when the bacillus or its spores fall into an open wound or into the eyes of its victim; In this form it is an aggressive disease but it can be treated with antibiotics and is rarely fatal. Gastrointestinal anthrax is…