Even though biological weapons are banned across the globe, the practice of allowing nations to cultivate or keep highly contagious and pathogenic viruses like Coronavirus is permitted, not new, not secretive and not uncommon in so far as its objectives are approved within the framework of international conventions.
It is similar to laboratories created to develop nuclear or atomic energy for positive purposes across the globe but subsequently abused for other destructive purposes. In the case of biomedical science, these high-level labs are called Bio-Safety Level 4 Labs (BSL-4).
BSL-4 labs provide top level security for scientists to handle pathogens of the highest risk (Group 4), such as Ebola, Lassa and Nipah viruses. BSL-4 labs diagnose and investigate these types of pathogens without endangering the staff or the population at large, yet accidents can occur just as accidents occur in hospital theatres leading to loss of lives. Currently, there are 52 Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) laboratories across the world. 15 of them are in the US, 6 in the UK, 1 in China (Wuhan), 1 in Russia, 4 in Australia, 4 in Germany, 3 in India 2 each in Taiwan, Switzerland, Italy, Japan, and Korea. The others are located in other countries.
In developing countries, in particular, industries that are perceived as dangerous like weapon manufacturing, nuclear and atomic physics, nano-technology, bioweapon, etc is not very popular but are vibrant industries in a lot of developed countries such as US, Canada, Japan, China, Russia, Italy, France, etc.
Jiangsu University, P.R.C
Most of the labs in Africa are levels 1 and 2 with a few level 3 biological labs that handle basic parasites, bacteria and less pathogenic viruses. While studying at the Lobachevski National University in Nizhny Novgorod (Russian Federation) in the late 2000s, a Russian colleague confronted me on why I was wasting time studying economics instead of chemistry. Again while studying in China, a Chinese friend asked me why most African students in the school were studying management and finance instead of studying science, technology and engineering as the Chinese were doing.
In both instances, I understood the messages they were communicating about the priorities of an African educational system very clearly. It is therefore not surprising that only two BSL-4 labs (out of the 52) are in Africa. These are the Centre International de Recherches Médicales de Franceville in Gabon and the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa.
The lack of interest in these perceived dangerous industries and the pressure from developed countries to stop investing in them may explain why all the stock of Uranium in my home country (Ghana) has been sold to China and its Atomic Energy Commission is not very beneficial to the ordinary citizen. A brief history of the BSL-4 Laboratory in Wuhan is important to set the mistrusts in the creation of level 4 biosafety laboratories into context.
The BSL-4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was opened in January 2015. The facility is jointly owned by China and France. On February 23, 2017, the then French Prime Minister; Bernard Cazeneuve visited officially inaugurated the joint initiative. The first contagious virus to be transferred to the lab was the Ebola virus from Africa. Wuhan’s laboratory is under the management of the National Health and Family Planning Commission and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Its vision is “to operate top-notch scientific research to respond to diseases based on Chinese and French expertise”.
Mr. Yaping Zhang, Vice President of China Academic of Sciences addressed the inaugural ceremony with these words “the laboratory will help China to strengthen the capability of preventing and controlling outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases and aid scientific research and development of antiviral drugs and vaccines”.
Since only BSL-4 laboratories keep such dangerous viruses and considering their potency for warfare, there is the growing suspicion that countries hosting BSL-4 Labs uses them to secretly produce bioweapons hence the linkage between Wuhan’s BSL-4 lab and COVID-19. Recently, terrorist groups such as Al-Qaida, ISIS, etc have also started manufacturing their own bioweapons.
This underlines the growing interest in bioterrorism as a field of study and a university in Ghana has started the process to deliver a bachelor program in bioterrorism to study this field more accurately. The global mistrust in the possible use of viruses for bioweapons is well known to China and other nations hence they seize every opportunity to assuage the fears of the global public when these issues come up.
For example during the visit of the French Prime Minister to Wuhan’s BSL-4 Laboratory in 2017, the Director of the Institute, Mr. Zhiming Yuan emphasized that transparency is the cornerstone of the laboratory, and an open culture is of vital importance to guarantee the security of the Laboratory.
Beyond the BSL-4 labs, countries also suspect that other secret installations exist for the development of vibrant bioweapon industry across the globe. In 2018 the Nuclear Threat Initiative of the US doubted China’s public declaration of being in compliance with the Biological Weapon Convention. Past and present U.S. government agencies have alleged that China has a small-scale offensive biological weapons program.
Only “credible evidence” stands between the US and the claim that Chinese entities have transferred control of biological weapons-related items to nations of proliferation concern such as Iran. In 2008, the US Congressional Research Service reported from unclassified sources that China, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Russia, and Syria have some bioweapon capability without much certainty and detail.
Conversely, China, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Russia, and Syria suspects that the US and its allies are also producing bioweapons without credible evidence. These countries believe that military medical institutions and toxin research and development centres in the US are dual-use structures for education and biological weapon manufacturing.
But in reality, a lot of developed countries (even those without BSL-4 Laboratories) appear to be secretly developing bioweapons as part of its biotechnology infrastructure including viruses. This is a certainty without proof and the possibility of viruses leaking from BSL-4 to cause an epidemic is a proof without certainty.
The International Committee of the Red Cross supports this assertion when they state that “today’s advances in life sciences and biotechnology, as well as changes in the security environment, have increased concern that long-standing restraints on the use of chemical and biological weapons may be eroding”. The hypocrisy in the biological weapon industry is similar to that in the chemical or nuclear weapon industry. If you think your neighbour is having more than you and you feel threatened, you make noise to make them look bad.
It is an open secret that the US like others produces its own nuclear weapons in secret, and indeed the US is the only country in the world to have successfully fired a nuclear bomb in Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II. However, due to the threat from North Korea and, Iran etc, the US will constantly ring alarm bells to court global disaffection for these countries without disclosing theirs. These countries (North Korea and, Iran) also are constantly spreading anti-American sentiments among their citizens and the global public to court international sympathy.
Thus Anti-America, Anti-China, Anti-Islam, Anti-Black, Anti-Arab, Anti-Israel, Anti-Japan, Anti-Russia and Anti-Korea sentiments etc have all subtly contributed to nourishing a flourishing undercover bioweapon market across the world. Finally, just as nuclear accidents occur in atomic and nuclear laboratories as was witnessed in Chernobyl (Soviet Union) and Bhopal (India), accidents can occur in BSL-4 laboratories and highly contagious pathogenic viruses can escape to cause widespread epidemics in the catchment area or spread abroad.
This is at the centre of the “Wuhan lab conspiracy theory” but this “invincible biomedical conundrum” will remain unproven. Many patients have died in hospitals by medical negligence but the truth will never come out. Most importantly, even without virus leakages from BSL-4, highly contagious and pathogenic viruses can emerge and mutate.
Most of the greatest epidemic cases in history occurred when there were no virus labs and bioweapon industries. As human as we are, we cannot ignore the thin truism in these conspiracy theories but we need to set the boundary on how much of it is too far and how far of it is too much. “StayatHome”.
Source: Dr. Henry Asante Antwi
Centre for Health and Public Policy Research
Jiangsu University, P.R.C
asanteantwi2@yahoo.com
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