EbolaConcerns about use of Ebola as a bioweapon exaggerated: Experts
The stabbing of a federal air marshal with a syringe at the airport in Lagos, Nigeria, three weeks ago has raised concern about the possibility that the Ebola virus could be harvested by terrorists and used as a bioweapon. Security experts say that worries about the Ebola being used as a weapon by terrorists are exaggerated, since it would be very difficult for terrorists to grow large quantities of the virus and then turn the virus into an effective, dispersible weapon to cover a wide area in order to infect and kill a large number of people. Still, experts say the possibility of Ebola as a terror weapons cannot be completely discounted – especially small-scale attacks on individuals, like the attack on the air marshal at Lagos airport. Potentially even more dangerous would be a bioattack by suicide infectors – individuals who deliberately infected themselves for the purpose of carrying the virus out of an epidemic zone in order to infect people in other areas or even other countries.
The stabbing of a federal air marshal with a syringe at the airport in Lagos, Nigeria, three weeks ago has raised concern about the possibility that the Ebola virus could be harvested by terrorists and used as a bioweapon (“U.S. air marshal in quarantine after suspected Ebola syringe attack at Lagos airport,” HSNW, 9 September 2014).
The syringe used in the Lagos attack was recovered at the scene and its contents examined at a biodefense forensics laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The FBI said the syringe did not contain the Ebola virus or other threatening agents. The marshal who was stabled was released from a Houston, Texas hospital with no sign of illness.
The New York Times quotes security experts say that worries about the Ebola being used as a weapon by terrorists are exaggerated, since it would be very difficult for terrorists to grow large quantities of the virus and then turn the virus into an effective, dispersible weapon to cover a wide area in order to infect and kill a large number of people.
“The bad guys are more likely to kill themselves trying to develop it,” Dr. Philip K. Russell, a retired major general who was the commander of the Army Medical Research and Development Command, told the New York Times.
Still, experts say the possibility of Ebola as a terror weapons cannot be completely discounted – especially small-scale attacks on individuals, like the attack on the air marshal at Lagos airport. Potentially even more dangerous would be a bioattack by suicide infectors – individuals who deliberately infected themselves for the purpose of carrying the virus out of an epidemic zone in order to infect people in other areas or even other countries.
“To truly isolate the virus takes a lot of resources,” Dr. Ryan C. W. Hall, a Florida psychiatrist who has written about the psychiatric impacts of bioterrorism attacks, told the Times. “But if you have people who are willing to die and willing to inject themselves with the blood of someone who has been infected, you don’t need a Biosafety Level 4 lab,” he said, referring to the special security facilities used to research the most deadly pathogens.
