Non-Subscriber Extract
G7 to establish germ warfare crisis centre
- Article Tools
| 22 February 2005 |
G7 to establish germ warfare crisis centre
Thomas Ország-Land
The governments of the world's richest countries have agreed to establish an international germ warfare crisis centre and vaccine bank as a matter of top priority. The centre, which will be set up in Ottawa, Canada, will collaborate closely with the United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO) in efforts to ward off the threat of mass infections. Whether they occur naturally or are introduced deliberately by bio-terrorists, they could spread very fast in unprepared populations and claim millions of victims.
In Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, some of the world's most advanced germ warfare establishments, which were built by the Soviets, are also collaborating with Western scientists in a widening programme to defuse the threat of bio-terror attacks. The Soviets are believed to have utilised as many as 50 biological agents in their weapons programme, genetically engineering some of them to be resistant to antibiotics. Soviet Cold War secrets are now being used in the development of defences against biological weapons of mass destruction.
Nevertheless, Tommy Thompson, the United States Secretary of Health, admits that "despite our best efforts, we must concede that the terrorists can still hit any of us at any time". He said the decision to establish the germ warfare crisis centre was made after a recent Paris conference of the health ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized countries (G7).
Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French Minister of Health, said: "A biological terror attack is not a virtual threat. It is a real threat." British Health Secretary John Reid added: "The price of security is eternal vigilance, intelligence, surveillance, awareness and preparations to respond to such attacks."
The ministers previously met in London and Ottawa since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington to consider joint defences against bio-terror attacks on major population centres. The countries involved in the programme are the G7 (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US) plus the European Union as a whole and Mexico.
Russia - whose participation would make the group the G8 - has expressed no interest in the programme, perhaps because of the vast Cold War germ warfare facilities and expertise that it has inherited from the Soviets. By contrast, the US Homeland Security Department decided on 26 January to go ahead with the creation of its long proposed $130-million National Bio-defence Analysis and Counter-measures Centre in Maryland to deal with current and future germ warfare threats.
400 of 1,531 words