Friday, January 31, 2014

India 1: How the Soviet's acquired and built one of the most advance smallpox weapon programs

Washington and Moscow are joining forces to prevent an international effort to destroy their remaining stocks of smallpox, arguing that the supplies could be needed develop a vaccine in the event of a bio-terror attack.

Much has been written on the Soviet Biopreparat program since its discovery in 1989, following the defection of several senior scientists who headed up the program, notably one of the largest clandestine BW programs ever run by a State. Expert analysis on all facets of Biopreparat are in the public domain and this is not intended as a review of those experts work only a glimpse into one aspect common to all military BW programs. Often overlooked, but of interest in understanding how biological warfare programs develop is the procurement and acquisition process undertaken in obtaining culture collections particularly after the ratification of the BTWC in 1976. While the fall of the Soviet Union ushered in an era of concern over scientific flight and while states such as Syria, Iran and the DPRK are suspected of having obtained highly pathogenic strains of Category A agents from the former Soviet stocks, it is the Soviet acquisition of India 1 a particularly virulent strain of smallpox,  which is perhaps more indicative of how sections of some programs have been built. It is worth considering that during natural and re-occurring outbreaks of deadly disease such as Ebola and other viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHF), some thought should be given to securing outbreak sites beyond protocols to prevent further transmission of  disease or epidemics.

Although the Soviet program dates back to the 1920's, their acquisition of India 1 is of special interest today as we consider how states such as Syria and the DPRK build their biological warfare programs. 

India 1 
Smallpox is believed to have emerged in human populations about 10,000 BC. Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300-500 million deaths during the 20th century alone more than all wars combined. As recently as 1967, the WHO estimated 15 million people contracted the disease and two million of those died that year. See:
Smallpox is caused by infection with variola virus, which belongs to the genus orthopoxvirus, the family poxviridae and subfamily chordopoxiridae. In 1947, the Soviets established a smallpox weapon production facility in Zagorsk, 75 km from Moscow. In 1971, after an open air field test of weaponized (aerosolized) smallpox believed to be based on the India 1 strain at a military testing ground on the Aral Sea, an outbreak occurred. General Prof. Peter Burgasov, former Chief Sanitary Physician of the Soviet Army and a senior researcher within the Soviet program of biological warfare, described the incident:  
Ken Alibek, as he is known publicly was Chief Scientist at Biopreparat from 1987 to 1992. He contends:

"The Russians themselves had proposed the global eradication program back in 1958. They had pledged to provide 25 million doses of vaccine every year to the program. If we hadn't had that amount of vaccine we could never have succeeded.' Alibek further contends that the Kremlin had a clear understanding that if smallpox was eradicated, and vaccination ended, the virus had the potential to be the most powerful and effective weapon ever created to eliminate human life. According to Alibek, one particularly virulent strain India 67 or India 1, was chosen by the Russians to be weaponized. They perfected techniques for mass producing smallpox and maintained a rolling annual stockpile of hundreds of tonnes. They also developed ways to disseminate the virus in aerial bombs and ballistic missile warheads. Additional work was done to enhance the virulence of the virus and to combine it with other viruses." See:

But how did the Soviet's actually acquire their India 1 strain? For the most part this has been speculative. Raymond Zilinskas, Milton Leitenberg and Jens Kuhn in their impressive work entitled:  The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: a History, note three possible sources: 1. That they could have acquired it from a 1959 smallpox outbreak in Moscow, result of an Indian passenger, the index case who arrived on a plane from New Delhi. 2. The Institute for Viral Preperations in Moscow which was a WHO reference center may have received it as part of a normal exchange as it was common practice for laboratories to exchange culture collections; or 3. When it was confirmed that the Indian passenger had smallpox, Zagorsk sent a scientific team to Moscow. They collected blood samples and took it back to their institute and weaponized it over the course of eight years.

Follow-up blogs will consider how Iran and Syria may have collected their variola strains and what efforts might be undertaken to prevent further proliferation.
Dragon voice recognition


No comments:

Post a Comment
