Russian Germ Warfare Experts Raise Smallpox Alarm

10/05/2001| IslamWeb

MOSCOW (Islamweb & News Agencies) - Former Soviet germ warfare scientists, warning that so-called rogue powers could lure underpaid Russian researchers, called Monday for wide reintroduction of worldwide vaccination against the now extinct smallpox virus.
``It is a very dangerous weapon in the hands of terrorists and...you don't need some clever way of delivering it,'' said Lev Sandakhchiyev, director of Russia's Vektor Institute, which holds one of the world's two official samples of smallpox.
``All you need is a sick fanatic to get to a populated place,'' he told a news conference in Moscow. ``The world health system is completely unprepared for this.''
Officials declared smallpox eradicated worldwide in 1981 and have since stopped inoculating people against an illness that had killed countless millions throughout human history.
But authorities in the United States and elsewhere now fear the disease might reappear if individuals like the mystery attackers mailing anthrax to Americans were to get their hands on smallpox. Four people have died so far in the United States.