Biological weapons

Biological weapons

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  BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS DEFINITION, INVENTION,USAGE AND THEIRS IMPACTS BY: SADAF ATTIQUE AND SAFA FAROOQI
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  WHAT ARE BIOLOGICALWEAPONS? Biological weapons, also called germ weapon introduce a bacteria or a virus into an environment for hostile purposes, that is not prepared to defend itself from the intruder. It contains any of a number of disease-producing agents—such as bacteria, viruses, rickettsiae, fungi, toxins, or other biological agents—that may be utilized as weapons against humans, animals, or plants.
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  BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AGENTS •Biological warfare agents differ greatly in the type of organism or toxin used in a weapons system, lethality, length of incubation, infectiousness, stability, and ability to be treated with current vaccines and medicines. There are five different categories of biological agents that could be weaponized and used in warfare or terrorism. These include: • Bacteria—single-cell organisms that cause diseases such as anthrax, brucellosis, tularemia, and plague. • Rickettsiae—microorganisms that resemble bacteria but differ in that they are intracellular parasites that reproduce inside cells. Typhus and Q fever are examples of diseases caused by rickettsia organisms.
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  BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AGENTS •Viruses—intracellular parasites, about 1/100 the size of bacteria, that can be weaponized to cause diseases such as Venezuelan equine encephalitis. • Fungi—pathogens that can be weaponized for use against crops to cause such diseases as rice blast, cereal rust, wheat smut, and potato blight. • Toxins—poisons that can be weaponized after extraction from snakes, insects, spiders, marine organisms, plants, bacteria, fungi, and animals. An example of a toxin is ricin, which is derived from the seed of the castor bean.
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  WHEN HAVE BIOLOGICALWEAPON HAVE BEEN USED-A SHORT HISTORY • The first recorded use of biological agents is the Romans using dead animals to foul the enemies water supply. This had the dual effects of decreasing enemy numbers and lowering morale. • 1346-1347 - Mongols catapult corpses contaminated with plague over the walls into Kaffa (in Crimea), forcing besieged Genoans to flee. Some historians believe that this event was the cause of the epidemic of plague that swept across medieval Europe killing 25 million. • 1710 - Russian troops allegedly use plague-infected corpses against Swedes • 1767 - During the French and Indian Wars, the British give blankets used to wrap British smallpox victims to hostile Indian tribes.
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  DEADLY AND CHEAP? •When compared to the cost of a nuclear weapons program, biological weapons are extremely cheap. • It is estimated that 1 gram of toxin could kill 10 million people. • A purified form of botulinum toxin is approximately 3 million times more potent than Sarin, a chemical nerve agent. As a comparison, a SCUD missile filled with botulinum toxin could affect an area of 3700 sq.km, an area 16 times greater than could be affected with Sarin.
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  THREATS • Now morethan ever, there is a great threat that biological weapons could be used against civilians, specially because there are many terrorist groups who have or trying to create bio- weapons. • BW’s are still dangerous to all the world, although the use of these weapons was made illegal in 1925 by the Geneva Protocol and, for that reason, most countries don’t use them anymore. • AGGRAVATES: • Anxiety Unsafe hazardous waste disposal Environmental degradation Civilian casualties of war Inadequacy of civil defence Human disease and disability Neglect of dependents of war victims
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  ADVANTAGES • Biological weaponsare easy to use, because only a tiny amount of viruses or organisms are needed to kill or infect thousands of people. • Also, its really hard for the doctors to detect the weapons until its too late and people are already infected.
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  PROTECTIVE MEASURES • Itis important to detect biological weapons quickly, so doctors can react before its too late. A good way to protect yourself against biological weapons is to wear masks and protective clothing. • At the same time, victims of the weapon should be isolated to prevent the spreading of disease. • People affected by biological weapons should be given anti-biotics, as fast as possible before the disease gets worse.