Biological weapons – An overview

So far, the novel coronavirus has claimed lives of more than 50,000 people and has affected more than 1 million people around the globe. So-called superpowers including the United States, Germany and Russia have become helpless against a micro-organism. A lot of explanations have moved forward regarding the source of the novel coronavirus.

Is coronavirus a biological weapon?

China has alleged that the coronavirus was created by the United States to harm the Chinese economy. Another speculation is that the virus was made in a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan and accidentally escaped the facility and turned into a global pandemic.

On the other side, the majority of the people are claiming that coronavirus is a natural disaster. The lab-escape theory is so far the more widely accepted conspiracy theory, however, there is not a shred of single evidence present to prove that.

World powers and viruses

World powers do not rely solely on nuclear weapons, missiles, warplanes and tanks but they also use biological weapons including different types of viruses. Genetics experts also make viruses in laboratories through genetic engineering.

World powers usually made viruses in order to use these as a biological weapon that caused widespread destruction. Biological weapons can be deadly germs, bacteria, and mildew. However, the United Nations has banned the creation and use of these types of weapons.

Use of biological weapons

One of the first reported use of biological weapons occurred in 1347 when Mongol forces reported having catapulted plague-infected bodies over the walls into the Black Sea port of Caffa (now Feodosiya, Ukraine) at that time a Genoese trade centre in the Crimean Peninsula.

Some historians believe that ships from the besieged city returned to Italy with the plague, starting the Black Death pandemic that swept through Europe over the next four years and killed some 25 million people (about one-third of the population).

Another incident occurred in 1710 when a Russian army fighting Swedish forces barricaded in Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia) also hurled plague-infested corpses over the city’s walls.

Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)

After World War I, most countries banned the use of biological and chemical weapons in the war. Then in 1972, Biological Weapons Convention – an international treaty – was signed in London, Moscow and Washington which bans the use of biological weapons in war and prohibits all development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, or transfer of such weapons.

However, the Soviet Union secretly continued its research on biological weapons despite the agreement. The illegal program confirmed by Russia’s first post-Soviet president, Boris Yeltsin, who ordered the termination of all Russian offensive biological weapons programs in 1992.

Biological terrorism

Biological weapons can easily be hidden and disguised as vaccine plants. These are not as expensive to manufacture as nuclear weapons, yet a lethal biological weapon might nonetheless be the strategic weapon that would win a war.

History also stated that banned organizations have also used these weapons. An important factor in biological weapons that attract terrorists is that they can easily escape before intelligence agencies start investigating. This is because the potential biological effects start after are 3 to 7 days.

In view of all these facts, it is feared that terrorists could use poison and disease viruses as weapons in the future.