 
Biological Weapons: How big is the threat?
The Director General of the World Health Organization
(WHO) called for countries to "strengthen their capacity to respond
to the consequences of the use of biological and chemical agents
as weapons" (click
here for further details). Dr Brundtland went on to tell health
ministers at a meeting in Washington on 24 September 2001 "we
must prepare for the possibility that people are deliberately
harmed with biological or chemical agents". WHO has recently
upgraded procedures to help countries respond to suspected incidents
of deliberate infection through the 'Global
Outbreak Alert and Response Network', which monitors reports
and rumours of disease events worldwide.
Possible biological agents
Although it is possible for any infectious agent
to be incorporated into a weapon, in reality, most experts agree
that anthrax, smallpox, botulism and plague are the most likely
candidates.
Organisms considered to have potential for biological weapons:
| Transmissible |
Non-transmissible |
- Plague (pneumonic)
- Plague (bubonic)
- Cholera
- Ebola
- Lassa
- Marburg
- Smallpox
- Influenza
- Paratyphoid fever
- Dysentery
- Typhoid fever
|
- Anthrax (pulmonary)
- Glanders
- Melioidosis
- Scrub typhus
- Epidemic typhus
- Eastern equine encephalitis
- Japanese B encephalitis
- Russian spring-summer encephalitis
- St Louis encephalitis
- Western equine encephalitis
- Yellow fever
- Inhaled toxins
- Brucellosis
- Tularaemia
- African tick-borne fever
- Rocky Mountain spotted fever
- Q fever
- Chikungunya
- Dengue
- Rift valley fever
- Venezuelan equine encephalitis
- West nile fever
- Coccidiodiomycosis
- Nocardiosis
- Histoplasmosis
- Ingestion of some toxins
|
« Back
|
