HEALTH-RUSSIA: Anthrax Outbreak in U.S. has no Soviet Connections

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW, Oct 24 2001 (IPS) - Russia has dismissed speculations that the anthrax outbreaks in the United States could be linked to the legacy of the Soviet biological warfare programme.

Since the start of the anthrax outbreaks in the United States, there have been allegations of Soviet connection.

A former Biopreparat factory employee, Ken Alibek, alias Kanajan Alibekov, claimed that anthrax spores discovered in the United States had been produced at the factory in Kazakh, Stepnogorsk.

Denying the claims, Biopreparat factory deputy director, Valentin Yevstigneyev, told Kazakh state-run television, on Oct 22, that his facility had no connection whatsoever with anthrax spores discovered in the United States. “Alibekov, former Biopreparat employee, is either uninformed or is making deliberate libellous allegations,” he said.

Yevstigneyev said there had been projects to develop biological weapons in Stepnogorsk but that the projects were shut down in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. By embarking on the project, the Soviet Union had violated the Biological Weapons Convention that it signed in 1972.

Russia’s Defence Ministry also dismissed media speculations about possible “Russian connection” in the anthrax scare in the United States. “Any attempts to find evidence linking the U.S. anthrax outbreaks to Russia are absolutely groundless,” the ministry said in a statement, on Oct 19.

“All anti-bio-warfare units of the Defence Ministry do not pose any environmental hazard while Russia’s anti-bio-warfare troops possess all necessary means to deal with any threat,” the statement added.

On Apr 2, 1979 anthrax outbreak infected 94 people and killed at least 64 in Sverdlovsk, now called Ekaterinburg, some 1,360 kilometres east of the capital, Moscow.

The government claimed the deaths were caused by anthrax from infected meat. Even now some Russian officials still find the version of the Soviet government story unbelievable.

Eyewitnesses, too, refused to subscribe to the government’s point of view. “The roofs and walls of our houses were washed twice by people in masks,” said Zinaida Vikulova, survivor of the accident. Thousands of people were vaccinated and treated with antibiotics.

“It was not meat poisoning, it was something else,” argued Nina Berdyugina, former chief therapist in Sverdlovsk. “The KGB secret service investigated the incident.”

U.S. officials had long suspected the outbreak was caused by an accidental release of anthrax spores from a Soviet biological weapons facility located in the city.

After the demise of the Soviet Union, President Yeltsin Boris admitted, without going into details, that the anthrax outbreak was the result of military activity. He also signed a decree banning work on biological weapons and officially acknowledging that the Soviet Union had violated the 1972 Convention.

In April 1994 Yeltsin signed a decree to compensate survivors of the Sverdlovsk incident. However, according to Lev Fedorov, chairperson of Russia’s Chemical Safety Union, the decree stipulated that only those who had been infected at the work place would be compensated.

“As a result, people infected outdoors or at their private houses, in other words most of the victims, received no compensation,” Fedorov said.

In a 1999 book on the Soviet biological weapons programme called “Biohazard”, Ken Alibek, indicated that a missing air filter in an exhaust system was to blame for the anthrax outbreak. The Sverdlovsk accident still remains the only case of inhaled anthrax on record in the former Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union’s biological weapons programme included a network of germ factories, which produced hundreds of tonnes of anthrax spores, according to researchers.

Military researchers were engaged in attempts to create lab- designed lethal bugs. During the Soviet era researchers were dispatched to Africa and Asia to collect rare local bacteria and viruses.

“During the Cold War, the two foes (the Soviet Union and the United States) prepared weapons of destruction,” said Beniamin Cherkassky, a bacteriologist at the Russian Academy, RAN.

Referring to the mail scare in the United States, Cherkassky said: “Mail delivery is not the most efficient way of employing biological weapons, while letters were arguably designed to cause panic by attacking media outlets.”

Russia has lived with anthrax for centuries. In the 19th century up to 15,000 Russians contracted anthrax and 3,000 died of it each year. Even now some 15-20 people still contract anthrax each year in Russia, according to health authorities.

Some 35,000 burial sites of cattle infected with natural anthrax exist in Russia, and 15,000 sites can be found in other former Soviet states.

Despite all these evidences, Russian officials still try to convince the public that there is nothing to fear about anthrax. There will be no bio-war because “tens of tonnes” of anthrax powder are needed to cause mass outbreaks, Russian Chief veterinary official, Guennady Onischenko, said.

Russia produces two million doses of anthrax vaccine per year, he said, “while 55,000 Russians are vaccinated every year to get a one-year immunity.”

Russian officials also dismiss possibility of new germ leaks. Nikolai Urakov, head of Russia’s State Biological Research Centre in Obolensk, south of Moscow, told RTR television that stocks of deadly germs were being guarded as tightly as nuclear facilities.

But ordinary Russians are not convinced. According to a recent opinion poll, 64 percent of Russians fear incidental leaks of dangerous substances rather than bio-terrorism, which is dreaded by 36 percent of the respondents.

Although mass vaccination is not contemplated, caution is required in Russia, Onischenko said. “On Oct 17, we informed regional health authorities to be vigilant with ‘odd letters’,” he said.

Russia, too, has become subject of anthrax scare. On Oct 23 Tomsk region in Siberia introduced extra measures against anthrax. Farit Astakhov, head of regional mail service, ordered his employees to sort mail in gloves and respirators. Tomsk experienced anthrax outbreak in 1977, when seven people were infected.