By Jeremy Laurence - Independent News
 The
US government has ordered 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine from a British
company in a sign of the growing alarm that terrorists could unleash lethal viruses
in future battles against Western states.
The astonishing size of the contract
- worth $343m (£200m) - highlights the fears on both sides of the Atlantic about
the threat of biological terrorism. If a virus such as smallpox was released,
the speed of modern communications could spread the infection all over the world
in days.
In the UK, the health department warned all NHS hospitals last
year to prepare for a criminal or terrorist attack on their local populations
involving biological weapons. Police teams trained by scientists from Porton Down,
the government research centre on biological and chemical warfare, have been formed
to take the lead role in the event of an attack.
The British Medical Association
said that advances in technology meant biological weapons were now easier to manufacture
than chemical ones, increasing the risk that they could be used in an attack.
Over
the past 40 years there have been 121 incidents around the world involving the
use of biological agents. The use of sarin nerve gas in an attack by a Japanese
terrorist organisation six years ago, in which 12 people were killed and 5,000
injured, focused world attention on the threat. The US last year set aside $1.4bn
(£940m) for protection against chemical or biological attacks.
The latest
contract for smallpox vaccine is against a disease that no longer exists - and
the world must hope it will never encounter again. It was eradicated from the
planet in 1980 and only two research institutions - one in the US and one in Russia
- still retain stocks of the virus.
The threat of a smallpox attack is
highlighted in the preview edition of Infectious Diseases, a new journal published
by The Lancet. Donald Henderson of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health said:
"A large stockpile of vaccine is a very high priority because smallpox has a 30
per cent fatality rate. There is no vaccine production capacity anywhere in the
world and we now have a very susceptible population."
The vaccine ordered
by the US government is being manufactured by a US subsidiary of the Cambridge-based
UK biotechnology company Acambis, formerly known as Peptide Therapeutics. Delivery
to the US government's Center for Disease Control in Atlanta is due to start from
mid-2004.
A spokeswoman said: "At the moment we are going through the process
of developing and licensing the vaccine, but under the contract we have the right
to sell it to anyone who wants it. When the time comes we will be marketing it
to other governments, including the UK. It certainly would be a logical step for
them to take."
The likelihood of a chemical or biological attack in the
UK is seen as low by the Department of Health, but the results could be devastating.
Working parties have been set up to consider the threat and exercises have been
run in parts of the country. Lists of the most likely agents to be used have been
drawn up, together with advice on how many people they might kill or injure, and
strategies for treating the victims.
In the US, fear of biological terrorism
has become as unnerving as the threat itself. President Clinton's declaration
in 1998 that he expected a biological or chemical attack within the next five
years has fuelled alarm and provided fertile ground for hoaxers. |
