BIOTERRORISM: is it a real threat

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BIOTERRORISM is it a real threat?

• Zofia Piotrowska-Seget
• Department of Microbiology
• University of Silesia

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Bioterrorism
The unlawful use of microorganisms or toxins
derived from living organisms to produce death or
disease. The act is intended to create fear
and/or intimidate governments or societies in the
pursuit of political, religious, or ideological
goals.

• Microorganisms that infect and grow in the target
  host producing a clinical disease that kills or
  incapacitates the targeted host.
• Biologically Derived Bioactive Substances (BDBS)
  products of metabolism (usually, but not always,
  of microbial origin). These include biological
  toxins, as well as substances that interfere with
  normal behavior, such as hormones, neuropeptides
  and cytokine.

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Targets of bioterroristic attack

• people
• animals
• plant
• food
• water

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History of bioterrorism
//www.zoetecnocampo.com/Documentos/cornezuelo
Ancient times Poisoned arrows Solon poisoned the
water supply with hellebore (skunk cabbage), an
herb purgative (battle of Krissa). 184
B.C.During the naval battle against King Eumenes
of Pergamon, Hannibal's forces hurled pots filled
with serpents upon enemy decks.
1346During the siege of Kaffa, the Tartar army
hurled its plague-ridden dead over the walls of
the city. The defenders were forced to surrender.
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History of bioterrorism
15th CenturyDuring Pizarro's conquest of South
America, he improved his chances of victory by
presenting to the natives, as gifts, clothing
laden with the variola virus 1763Captain Ecuyer
of the Royal Americans, under the guise of
friendship, presented to the native Americans
blankets and the handkerchiefs contaminated with
smallpox
http//faculty1.coloradocollege.edu/cneel/hy105/B
lack_.jpg
1915Dr. Anton Dilger, grew cultures of
Pseudomonas mallei supplied by the German
government, in his home. The agents and an
inoculation device were given to sympathetic
dockworkers in Baltimore to infect 3000 horses,
mules, and cattle, destined for the Allied troops
in Europe
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otos/bbTrade.gif
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History of bioterrorism
http//www.appaloosa.com.br/mormo/
World War I Germany used Burkholderia mallei to
infect horses and mules on the Eastern Front Due
to contact with the infected animals people also
became ill 1914-1917Germans attempted to
spread cholera in Italy, plague in St.
Petersburg, and biological bombs over Britain
http//www.fotoinfo.pl/fil_41e.jpg

http//www.first-world-war.com/images/dhm1361.jpg
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International law

• Protocol for the prohibition of the use in
  war of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases and
  of bacteriological methods of warfare on June 17,
  1925,
• This protocol does not prevent the stockpile or
  development of such weapons and many state
  parties, reserved the right to strike against
  non-member states using such weapons or to
  retaliate when such weapons were used in a first
  strike,
• Geneva Protocol is the first multilateral
  agreement that extends the prohibition of
  chemical agents to biological agents.

http//images.google.pl/imgres?imgurlhttp//www.p
ilsudski.org/images/Sosnkowski.jpg
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Unit 731
http//people.bu.edu/wwildman/WeirdWildWeb/courses
/thth/projects/thth_projects_2003_parkeun.htm
http//www.z-files.de/paranormal/
verschwoerung/ishii.jpg
1932As Japanese troops invaded Manchuria, Shiro
Ishii, a physician army officer, began
experiments on biological warfare.
1936 Unit 731 was formed. Ishii constructed a
150 building complex just outside of Harbin,
Manchuria for experimental purposes. Over 9000
test cases eventually died there. Ishii tested
biological warfare on the Chinese, soldiers and
civilians. Tens of thousands died as a result of
plague, cholera, anthrax, etc.,
1941 - plague was introduced by the Japanese in
Suiyuan and Ninghsia provinces. A serious
epidemic followed.
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II World War
1941 The British experimented with
anthrax off the Scottish coast. Despite
attempts to disinfect Gruinard Island, the spores
left by the experiments kept the island for 48
years. The island was totaly disinfected in
1986 year.
http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/1457035.stm
http//www.gifte.de/B-20und20C-Waffen/gruinard_i
sland_bild01.htm
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Cold war
1942 The U.S. begins an offensive biological
weapons program at Camp Detrick. After the war,
efforts were continued at the renamed Fort
Detrick and Pine Bluff.
Both USA and Soviet Union explored the use of
hundreds of different bacteria, viruses, and
biological toxins. Each program devised
sophisticated ways to disperse these agents in
fine-mist aerosols, to package them in bombs, and
to launch them on missiles.
In 1979, a rare outbreak of anthrax disease in
the city of Sverdlovsk killed nearly 70 people.
The Soviet government publicly blamed
contaminated meat, but U.S. intelligence sources
suspected the outbreak was linked to secret
weapons work at a nearby army laboratory.
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Cold war
1969 President Richard Nixon ended the U.S.
biological weapons program, and pledged the
nation will never use biological weapons under
any circumstances. The entire arsenal was
destroyed by 1973, except for seed stocks held
for research purposes. 1972 The Convention on
the Prohibition of the Development, Production,
and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological)
and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction is
signed by more than 100 countries, going into
effect in 1975. Signatories include Iraq and all
permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council.
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Classification of biological agents
According to Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Atlanta
Category A
Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) Yersinia pestis
(plague) Variola major (smallpox) Francisella
tularensis (tularemia) Botulin
toxin (Clostridium botulinum) Viral hemmorrhagic
fevers Ebola, Marburg (filovirusy),
Lassa (adenovirus)

• Microorganisms that pose a special risk to
  national security
• can be easily disseminated or
• transmitted from person to person
• result in high mortality rates and
• have the potential for major public
• health impact
• might cause public panic and
• social disruption
• require special action for public
• health preparedness.

http// www.bt.cdc.gov/agentlist-category.asp
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Category B
Category C
Coxiella burnetii (Q fewer) Brucella
(Brucellosis) Burkholderia mallei (Glanders)
Staphylococcal enterotoxin B Epsilon toxin
Clostridium perfringens Ricin toxin (Ricinus
communis) Viral encephalitis (e.g Venezuelan
equine encephalitis, eastern equine
encephalitis) Food safety threats
Salmonella Shigella dysenteriae Escherichia
coli O157H7 Water safety threats Vibrio
cholerae Cryptosporidium parvum

• virus Nipah
• virus Hanta
• yellow fever virus

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Bacillus anthracis
www.textbookofbacteriology.net
Aerobe, spore-forming bacterium 3 8
µm 1 1,5 µm
Robert Koch (1876 year) isolated and described
this rod
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Anthrax basics

• Zoonotic disease in herbivores (e.g., sheep,
• goats, cattle) follows ingestion of spores in
  soil
• Human infection typically acquired through
  contact with
• anthrax-infected animals or animal products or
  atypically
• through intentional exposure
• Three clinical forms
• Cutaneous
• Inhalational
• Gastrointestinal

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Virulence factors

• poly-D-glutamic acid capsule
• anthrax toxin composed of three proteins

pXO1
pXO2
http//www.the-optimists.org.uk/authors/mark_g/gra
phics/full/anthrax-toxin.gif
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Smallpox
1979 - eradication of smallpox

• Smallpox is a serious, contagious, and sometimes
  
• fatal infectious disease caused by virus
  Variola major

• Overall mortality rates were approximately 30

• Now the disease is eradicated after a successful
  worldwide
• vaccination program.
• Officially, the only remaining stocks of smallpox
  virus are held at the VECTOR institute in
  Koltisovo in Russia and at the Centre for Disease
  Control and Prevention in Georgia, USA

http//www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/bio
wissenschaften_chemie
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Botulin toxin (A)
Neurotoxic protein produced by the bacterium
Clostridium botulinum It is possibly the most
acutely toxic substance known, with a lethal dose
of about 200-300 pg/kg This toxin is rapidly
destroyed by heat, such as in thorough cooking
Zn2
Arnon S. et al. 2001. Botulinum toxin as a
biological weapon.JAMA, 2851059-1070.

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IRAQ
Al-Hakam
Missiles 13 with botulin toxin 10 with
aflatoxin 2 with anthrax spores
Bombs 100 with botulin 50 with anthrax
spores 7 with aflatoxin
In the early 1990's it was discovered that Iraq
had produced 8,000 liters of anthrax spores.
8,000 liters is a sufficient amount capable of
killing every man, woman, and child on earth.
Zilinskas RA . Iraq's biological weapons the
past as future? JAMA.1999278418-424.
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Ebola virus
Zoonotic virus 4 biotypes Ebola Zair, Sudan,
Reston, Ivory Cost
Ebola haemorrhagic fever Symptoms high fever,
headache, abdominal pain, severe organ damage
(especially the kidneys, spleen and liver) as a
result of disseminated systemic necrosis. Among
humans, the virus is transmitted by direct
contact with infected body fluids or to a lesser
extent, skin or mucus membrane contact.
From CDC collection
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Ricin toxin
The seeds from the castor bean plant, Ricinus
communis, are poisonous to people, animals and
insects
Ricin toxin inhibits protein sythesis by
specifically and irreversibly inactivating
eukaryotic ribosomes.

• The symptoms of human poisoning begin within a
  few hours of ingestion.
• The symptoms are
• abdominal pain
• vomiting
• diarrhea, sometimes bloody
• decrease in blood pressure

Lethal dose 1 mg can kill adult
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Features of the perfect biological weapon

• Highly infectious requiring only a few organisms
  to cause the desired
• effect (e.g. smallpox) or highly effective
  requiring a small quantity of
• material to cause the desired effect (e.g.
  botox),
• Efficiently dispersible, usually in the air
  contagious or effective on
• contact,
• Readily grown and produced in large quantities,
• Stable in storage preferably in a
  ready-to-deliver state,
• Resistant enough to environmental conditions so
  as to remain infectious or operational long
  enough to affect the majority of the target, but
  not so
• persistent as to affect the occupying
  army.

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Bioterrorism a real threat

• Most agents relatively easy to produce
• Availability of information on the Internet
• Access to dual use equipment
• Relatively inexpensive
• cost of 50 casualty rate per km2
• conventional - 2,000
• nuclear - 800
• anthrax - 1
• Many casualties but preserves structures

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Bioterrorism a real threat

• Dissemination may cover large area
• Difficult to detect release
• Symptoms occur days or weeks later
• Some have secondary spread
• Use can cause panic
• Users able to protect selves
• Users can escape before effect

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World Health Organization (WHO) expert committee
estimated that casualties following the
theoretical aircraft release of 50 kg of anthrax
over a developed urban population of 5 million
would be 250,000 - 100,000 of whom would be
expected to die without treatment
Inglesby T.V et al. 1999. Anthrax as a biological
weapon. Medical and public health management.
JAMA, 281 1735-1745.
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Can we stop bioterrorism?

• Clarifying the cause of suspicious disease
  outbreaks
• Increasing cooperation among international
  agencies,
• Improving peaceful cooperation between
  scientists to make
• their activities more "transparent,"
• Looking for bio-weapons specialists from the
  former Soviet
• Union or Iraq who disappear, stop publishing,
  or suddenly get
• rich,
• Controlling international trade in biological
  equipment useful for
• military and civilian purposes,