Did This Virus Jump From Animals Or From China’s B-weapons?
A US think-tank report calls for investigation into the precise origin of SARS virus
HUMA SIDDIQUI
New Delhi, April 30: A US think-tank has concluded that severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus being a man-made disaster emanating from China deserves to be investigated for lack of decisive information on “the precise origin of this virus.”
It is thus necessary to continue to monitor China’s ‘biological weapon’(BW) programme, recommends a recent report of Jamestown Foundation.
The thrust of reporting thus so far on the origins of the SARS points to a mutation of the coronavirus, which causes the common cold. This view holds that the virus most likely jumped from animals to humans, somewhere in China’s Guangdong province. But these are compelling reasons, however unsettling, to at least ask whether there might be any linkage between SARS and China’s biological warfare efforts.
According to the report, to be sure, the dominant scientific opinion on the source of SARS— confirmed by the World Health Organisation earlier this month —points to a strain of the coronavirus thought to have originated in animals. The earliest victims of SARS are reported to have been people in Guangdong, who either ate or handled game or fowl.
Even if it is a natural virus, the rapidity of the ongoing global spread of SARS illustrates the threat posed by modern BW. By contrast, chemical weapons like nerve gasses kill in a small locality and can wash away, says the report.
Even though China denies it has biological warfare capabilities, the US government maintains that “China is believed to possess an offensive biological warfare capability based on technology developed prior to its accession to the 1993 Biological Warfare Convention.” It may, therefore, be unwise to rule out human error, the report points out.
According to the report, in Russia at least, there is one scientist who has suggested a link between SARS and errant biological warfare activities. Sergei Kolesnikov, a member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and a State Duma lawmaker, has been quoted in media reports as saying: “The propagation of the atypical pneumonia (SARS) may well be caused by a leak of a combat virus grown in Asian bacteriological weapons labs.”
Of course, Russian suspicion of a bioweapon accident in China does not of itself prove any relationship to SARS. But such suspicions exist because the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) maintains defensive and offensive chemical and very likely—biowarfare capabilities. China is a member of the 1993 Biological Warfare Convention and regularly denies that it has biological warfare weapons.
But China does declare that it has research facilities devoted to “defensive” biological warfare.
To defend against Nuclear-Biological-Chemical (NBC) attack, the PLA maintains an Anti-Chemical Corps that is reported to have 46,000 troops. In terms of total troop numbers, China is said to have a higher ratio of chemical defence troops than North Korea.
The Chinese leadership’s paranoia, which led it to suppress reporting of and information about SARS starting last November, justly raises questions as to whether China may also be hiding a military-related disaster.
Indeed, many Chinese harboured exactly this suspicion before the advent of more truthful reporting on SARS. But even if this suspicion is unfounded, there is another disturbing question that needs to be answered. Given that SARS has devastated China more than any other country, why hasn’t the PLA, which is capable of deploying tremendous resources, assumed the role of global leader in isolating, detecting and seeking a vaccine for SARS?
URL: financialexpress.com |
