Posted on 12/10/2005 11:07:41 PM PST by FairOpinion
A few months ago, Kenyans were amused at media reports that thousands of rats had been killed at a major city market.
While the story may have made news due to this unusual finding, many people are unaware of the dangers posed by such huge numbers of rodents. Besides being vermin preying on man's food, rats are more dangerous as reservoirs of lethal diseases that can affect man.
That is why, with the ever-present threat of bio-terrorism, attention should also be focused on rats and how they can be used as bio-terror agents.
The most memorable and most devastating disease to have occurred in Europe was in the 13th century. The worst natural disaster ever recorded in European history took place from 1347-1350 AD.
Later dubbed the "Black Death," rat-borne bubonic plague swept over Europe, ravaging cities and causing widespread hysteria and death.
The dead littered the streets everywhere as cattle and other livestock roamed the country unattended. By the time the epidemic ended, a third of Europe's population had been wiped out.
It began in Asia in 1347 and from there spread by boat to port cities in Italy. It then moved up the trade routes, reaching England the next year. Its mortality rate was very high, estimated to be between 20 and 40 per cent. It killed an estimated 43 million people worldwide, including 25 million in Europe, or a third of the population there.
It devastated commerce, and led to social upheavals. Peasants rose up when they were denied higher wages, which they had demanded due to the massive shortage of workers. Crops died in the fields because there was no one to harvest them.
The devastation of the epidemic was aptly captured by the Italian writer, Giovanni Boccaccio who lived through it when he wrote:
"The violence of the disease was such that the sick communicated it to the healthy who came near them, just as fire catches anything dry near it. And it went further. To speak or go near the sick brought infection and a common death to the living; and moreover, to touch the clothes or anything else the sick had touched or worn gave the disease to the person touching it."
These vivid words serve to illustrate the severity of plague, a bacterial disease found in rats. Its highly lethal nature makes it very attractive as a bio-terrorism agent.
Caused by the bacterium known as Yersiniapestis, plague is an infectious disease with its natural reservoir in wild rodents. It is transmitted from rodent to rodent by the flea known as Xenopsylla cheopis, whose favourite food is the blood of rodents, with human blood as a second choice.
Plague has occurred in several African countries including Kenya, Botswana, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda.
Sudden excessive rat deaths often indicate an impending human epidemic. It happens that as fleas run out of rats, they turn to humans.
In fact, bubonic plague is the first use of biological warfare recorded in 1346. During the siege of Kaffa, a coastal town in the Black Sea, the Mongols, also known as Tartars, catapulted the remains of plague victims from their own army into the city.
The goal was to start a plaque epidemic among the defending Genoese, and the attempt was successful. Returning Genoese may have carried the plague that became the "Black Death" to Europe.
More recently, Japan developed a biological warfare programme between 1932 and 1945. Among other diseases investigated, plague was studied. This led to the creation of the "flea bomb" (Uji-50). This was a ceramic container containing plague-infected fleas and flour. When dropped on a village, the jar would burst open, spilling the flour out into the street. The village rats would come to eat the flour and would become infected. This weapon was tested on villages in Manchuria with deadly consequences.
While plague certainly is effective at spreading terror, it is perhaps not the best choice as a biological weapon. Its incubation period is too short to allow it to spread to many people, and, unless in the pneumonic form, requires fleas and rats to spread. With the use of antibiotics, its mortality rate drops from greater than 50 per cent to 14 per cent.
The greatest danger is in the genetic engineering of a form of plague that is resistant to antibiotics and that tends to spread through the pneumonic route.
We are living in the age of biotechnology and genetic engineering, and scientists agree that plague bacteria resistant to antibiotics now exist
Experts project that an intentional bio-terrorism-related outbreak of plague would most likely occur via an aerosol of the plague bacterium. Such an aerosol is odourless, colourless and tasteless. This means that no explosion or cloud would announce the presence of a lethal disease agent in the atmosphere.
Estimates by the World Health Organisation suggest that the intentional release of 100 pounds of aerosolised plague upwind of a city of five million inhabitants could lead to an estimated 150,000 casualties, with 80-100,000 hospitalised and 35,000 dead.
A sudden outbreak of pneumonic plague could suggest the possibility of a bio-terrorism attack. The disease would first present itself as a large number of patients with severe pneumonia, a blood bacterial infection, or other toxins in blood and other tissues.
Scientists believe that given the availability of the plague bacteria around the world, the capacity for its mass production and aerosol dissemination, difficulty in preventing such activities, the high fatality rate of the disease, and the potential for secondary spread, the potential use of plague as a biological weapon is a matter of great concern.
Dr Okoth is a researcher in science communication
Experts project that an intentional bio-terrorism-related outbreak of plague would most likely occur via an aerosol of the plague bacterium. Such an aerosol is odourless, colourless and tasteless. This means that no explosion or cloud would announce the presence of a lethal disease agent in the atmosphere.
Estimates by the World Health Organisation suggest that the intentional release of 100 pounds of aerosolised plague upwind of a city of five million inhabitants could lead to an estimated 150,000 casualties, with 80-100,000 hospitalised and 35,000 dead. "
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I wonder where Saddam's WMD are now. Just because we haven't found them yet, it doesn't mean that they never existed, in fact we know they existed,which means they are still somewhere, may be in terrorist hands...
PING
Those bastards, and in a day before dental floss was readily available.
Africa does not need fear the rat, they will need them for food as the continent yet again falls to near total chaos from stem to stern.
Anybody wants to see dead rats can come by my house. I got 8 cats and they bring their kills home daily.
These are still the ultimate terrorists...
Open borders is not such a smart idea for a nation claiming to be fighting a 'war on terror'
Unless of course you have other plans
imo
Do you have a link to the story?
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