Tag: bioterrorism

Bioweapons

War have been a part of human history since the beginning of time. However, the agents used to carry out warfare have changed and evolved just like humans did over time. First people use to hurt each other with their bare hands and sharp nails or throw stones or sticks at each other. Then someone thought, lets join the stone and stick, which led to the development of spheres and other things specially designed to kill. With the discovery of fire came a new way to cause mass destruction over a large scale. As science evolved, so did the weapons used in wars. From swords, crossbows and canons to guns, bombs, and tanks. But then came the era of nuclear warfare, things so powerful that it could destroy the entire world as we know it. However, an agent of war many people don’t know about and whose use has increased with the advancements of biotechnology and microbiology are bioweapons. Bioterrorism technically is defined as the violent use (by a person or group of individuals) of biological substance or toxins to injure. For example, this covid-19 pandemic which could be a form of bioterrorism, killing millions. But lets start from the first advent of the use of bioweapons.

Throughout human history, bioterrorism has been an issue. The Assyrians poisoned their enemies’ wells with ergot, a toxin-producing fungus typically found in Rye. This is one of the first stories of the use of bioterrorism and goes back to the 600 BC. In a more recently published account, Pizarro delivered the native Indians clothing tainted with smallpox in the 1500s when he conquered South America. Another similar report claims that Britain may have utilised diseases to undermine its adversaries during North American colonisation. The country could intentionally have sent Native Americans blankets tainted with pox. Bioweapons spread fast and cause mass destruction. The Convention against biologic weapons, which forbids the manufacturing, development, stockpiling and use of biological weapons was signed by 103 states under the guidance of the United Nations in 1972. Its however, well established that even superpowers of this world are not ready for an attack or outbreak of a bioweapon like smallpox and ebola. The high fatality rate among infected people is attributed to the possibility of aerosol transmission and the relative simplicity of large-scale manufacturing. Anthrax and especially smallpox are regarded the most significant threats of bioterrorism.

During world war 2 extensive research was carried out and many bioweapons were stockpiled by various countries from both the allied and axis powers. In an attack performed by religious-cult Aum Shinrikyo in a Tokyo metro station in 1995 using sarin, a chemical affecting the nervous system, resulted in the revelation of the risk of bioterrorism. Pathogens can also be engineered in the lab to give antibiotic resistance and higher virulence factor for the use of bioweapons. But science can also be used to create defences against these pathogens. Vaccination therapies, genome sequencing of the organism and drug designing are just among the wide biodefense’s science has to offer.

Some of common bioweapons used are:

  • Anthrax: Highly infectious and deadly, caused by bacterium bacillus anthrax. Having an incubation period of 7 days it can affect animals, humans, and children. It can be clinical diagnosed as either cutaneous, gastrointestinal, or inhaled. Its however, difficult to diagnose as it mimics the symptoms of a common cold.
  • Smallpox: Highly contagious and deadly, smallpox has been eradicated from the world thanks to vaccines, however smallpox vials had been stored in US and Russia in the name of research and these vials have been reportedly stolen, leaving the entire world population which is mostly not vaccinated against smallpox due to its eradication, at a high risk. If there is a smallpox attack, there aren’t enough vaccines for most of the people.
  • Cholera: Bacterium caused disease which was endemic in many parts of the world a few decades ago, cholera is transmitted through water ways and can be used as a bioweapon.
  • Salmonella: It’s a species of bacterium which infects the food you eat. Mixed with any food, it could cause gastrointestinal problems. However, it’s not considered that dangerous as food can be removed from the market.
  • Botulism: Produced by clostridium botulism its one of the most fatal toxins in the world. It can be inhaled or be present in your food, mostly canned food. Causing paralysis, vision problems suffocation within days or hours depending on the amount consumed, this bioweapon is highly dangerous and just need a few micrograms to kill millions. Once a person inhales it, its most certain death because an antidote does not exist for the toxin.
  • Ebola: Causing death in 90% of the people infected, Ebola is a much-feared virus that can be used as a bioweapon.
  • Ricin: Another toxin which is famous for being the bioweapon in the “umbrella murder case” its found in castor beans.

Although diseases are genetically modifiable, there is no evidence of virulence increase and the ability to promote an epidemic. This is no guarantee, however, that this risk is gone from the world. Because bioterrorism is a problem of global security, intelligence agencies have the responsibility to verify their actual potential and expansion. Some military specialists think Iraq still has an active bio war programme. A few years ago, a rare disease triggered an epidemic in Iraqi wheat fields, suspected of escaping a pathogenic infection from bioterrorism investigative facilities. Intelligence, constant monitoring, early warning systems, information sharing between agencies and cooperation should be part of any preventive programme in bioterrorism. Legislation should be in place that allows the government to apply quarantines to suspected people or items infected with infection, confiscate property and use hospitals for the benefit of the public. Finally, nobody should presume that biology and biotechnology science are always used for good. Biotechnology could be used in states that sponsor terrorism in the development of mass destruction pathogens and pests. Recent events have made us conscious of the worldwide community, and local events often have an impact around the world. It is crucial that one must be aware that science with all its benefit can also cause bioterrorism.

Bio-terrorism

Bio-terrorism is the intentional arrival of infections, microscopic organisms, poisons or other hurtful operators to cause ailment or passing in individuals, creatures, or plants. These operators are normally found in nature, yet could be transformed or modified to build their capacity to cause sickness, make them impervious to current medications, or to expand their capacity to be spread into the earth. Natural specialists can be spread through the air, water, or in food. Organic specialists are appealing to fear mongers since they are very hard to distinguish and don’t make ailment for a few hours a few days. Some bio-terrorism specialists, similar to the smallpox infection, can be spread from individual to individual and a few, similar to Bacillus anthracite

Bioterrorism might be supported in light of the fact that organic operators are generally simple and cheap to acquire, can be effectively scattered, and can cause broad dread and frenzy past the real physical harm. Military pioneers, be that as it may, have discovered that, as a military resource, bioterrorism has some significant confinements; it is hard to utilize a bioweapon such that solitary influences the foe and not agreeable powers. A natural weapon is valuable to fear mongers chiefly as a technique for making mass frenzy and disturbance to a state or a nation. In any case, technologists, for example, Bill Joy have cautioned of the potential force which hereditary designing may put in the possession of future bio-psychological militants.

The utilization of specialists that don’t make hurt people, yet upset the economy, have additionally been talked about. One such pathogen is the foot-and-mouth malady (FMD) infection, which is fit for causing across the board financial harm and open worry (as saw in the 2001 and 2007 FMD episodes in the UK), while having basically no ability to taint people.

Use of bio-terrorism in history was when World War I started, endeavors to use anthrax were aimed at creature populaces. This for the most part end up being insufficient. Soon after the beginning of World War I, Germany propelled an organic damage crusade in the United States, Russia, Romania, and France. Around then, Anton Dilger lived in Germany, yet in 1915 he was sent to the United States conveying societies of glanders, a destructive malady of horse and mules. Dilger set up a research facility in his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. He utilized stevedores working the harbors in Baltimore to contaminate ponies with glanders while they were holding back to be dispatched to Britain. Dilger was under doubt similar to a German specialist, yet was never captured. Dilger in the long run fled to Madrid, Spain, where he kicked the bucket during the Influenza Pandemic of 1918. In 1916, the Russians captured a German operator with comparable goals. Germany and its partners tainted French rangers ponies and huge numbers of Russia’s donkeys and ponies on the Eastern Front. These activities prevented cannons and troop developments, just as gracefully escorts.

Tom Inglesy, the CEO and executive of the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a universally perceived master on general well being readiness, pandemic and rising irresistible infection said in 2017 that the absence of an internationally standardized approval process that could be utilized to manage nations in directing general well being tests for reviving an illness that has just been killed builds the hazard that the ailment could be utilized in bio-terrorism.