The ongoing war in Ukraine has highlighted once again the potential threat posed by Biological Weapons (BW). The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines biological weapons as using: “microorganisms like virus, bacteria, fungi, or other toxins that are produced and released deliberately to cause disease and death in humans, animals or plants.” (1)
In essence, biological weapons seek to release disease. This is different to chemical weapons which use substances such as chlorine to cause burns and lung damage (chlorine gas was first used in World War 1) or nerve agents like Novichok used in the attempted poisonings of Sergei and Yulia Skripol and subsequent death of Dawn Sturgess in Salisbury in 2018. (2) (3)
The COVID-19 pandemic led to much speculation over whether or not the virus had escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan in China. Most scientists agree that the virus occurred naturally in animals before jumping to humans and was not manufactured in a laboratory. However, debate is ongoing as to whether human error led to its accidental release from a laboratory that was studying coronaviruses. (4)
Pathogen Storage
NB Definition: A pathogen is a bacterium, virus, or other microorganism that can cause disease.
Fifty-nine labs around the world handle and store the deadliest pathogens. They are known as Biosafety L 4 (BSL4) labs because they work with the most dangerous known pathogens.
BSL4 labs are found in 23 countries. Europe has 25 labs, North America has 14, Asia has 13, Australia has four and Africa has three. (5)
Within Europe both Russia and Belarus have BSL4 labs, Ukraine does not have any. (6)
Why do we store such dangerous pathogens?
There are many serious diseases that continue to threaten the health of populations around the world. For example, in recent years Ebola virus disease has caused large numbers of deaths in several African countries and plague, assumed by many to be part of medieval history, is still a very real threat. Madagascar continues to report cases of bubonic plague to the WHO nearly every year. (7) (8)
This continuing emergence and re-emergence of dangerous pathogens means we need laboratories to be working on treatments and vaccines and they cannot do this if scientists do not also have access to the disease causing pathogens.
Smallpox: A special case
Smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1980, thus far the only disease we have successfully eradicated. However samples of the smallpox virus are still held in two storage facilities. One is in Atlanta in the USA, the other in Koltsovo in Russia. Both sites are overseen by the WHO. (9) (10)
Some of the samples date back to the 1930s and, when smallpox was eradicated, the WHO said all samples should be destroyed. However a date for their destruction was not set and the samples remain in storage.
The advent of the Cold War meant that neither the US or Russia wanted to destroy their samples. The current political situation following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means that, once again, neither state will risk destroying their stocks anytime soon. Instead, fears that residual smallpox samples could be used in biological warfare means that the smallpox vaccine is still being made. Having access to the virus allows advances in both vaccines and treatments for smallpox to continue.
Cold War and politics aside, there are scientific reasons for keeping samples of an eradicated disease. The smallpox virus is very similar to some other viruses and smallpox samples were used by scientists studying the Ebola virus allowing them to develop treatments and a vaccine for Ebola. (11)
The War in Ukraine and Biological Weapons
On 11 March 2022 Reuters news agency published the following headline:
“EXCLUSIVE - WHO says it advised Ukraine to destroy pathogens in health labs to prevent disease spread.” (12)
This headline caused widespread alarm at the time but also some confusion within the scientific community. Like many countries Ukraine has public health laboratories researching dangerous diseases that affect both humans and animals, including COVID-19. Its laboratories receive support from the US, EU and WHO. Certainly direct bombing of those facilities could result in the release of disease causing pathogens, however this is true of any conflict where hospitals and laboratories are targeted and is not unique to Ukraine.
Reuters claimed to have received this information from an unnamed source at the WHO via e-mail. It is highly unusual at best that an organisation such as the WHO would make an “exclusive” and “anonymous” claim to the media by e-mail. There is no reference to the claim on the WHO’s own website and no televised announcements have been made by them. The WHO’s statements are always readily available on their website, including those on Ukraine, and always clearly name the spokesperson. (13)
Russian state-run media continues to claim, without evidence, that Ukraine is manufacturing biological weapons. (14) Some western media has also added to the confusion as commentators continue to make no distinction between “biological research facilities” and “biological weapon producing military laboratories”, using the terms interchangeably. (15) This is akin to claiming that a factory that makes toy guns is doing the same work as one making military hardware.
Russia has biological and chemical weapons and it is not a secret that laboratories throughout the former Soviet Union were involved in their manufacture. (16)
When the Soviet Union broke up, these laboratories were left in poor states of repair and there was a real fear dangerous pathogens could be released either accidentally or intentionally. There was therefore a large program put in place to repurpose these laboratories for peaceful purposes. This program - the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction – began in 1991 and was funded by the US. Weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear and biological weapons, were secured and destroyed. These laboratories have since been at the forefront of public health research, most recently in the fight against COVID-19 in Central Asia. (17)
The former Soviet laboratories work closely with the WHO as well as other public bodies and have allowed media access to them, including Russian media. Perhaps because Russia knows what these laboratories handled in the Soviet era it continues to claim they are making biological weapons, financed principally by the US. These disinformation campaigns have ramped up since Russia invaded Ukraine. (18)
Summary
Ukraine, like most countries, will have disease causing pathogens stored for research purposes. There is no evidence they are developing bioweapons and there are no BSL4 laboratories, those that deal with the deadliest pathogens, in Ukraine.
The Reuters “exclusive” story, reputed to be from an anonymous source within the WHO and claiming the WHO has instructed Ukraine to destroy biological materials, should be viewed with extreme caution. The WHO does not release anonymous statements to the media nor does it release them on an exclusivity basis. Furthermore, the story has not been corroborated by either the WHO itself, or any other credible source.
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