SARS could be biological weapon: experts
Posted 11 April 2003, updated 11 April 2003
Russian infectious disease experts say Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) may be a man-made biological weapon.
Nikolai Filatov, head of Moscow's epidemiological services, told the Gazeta daily that he thought the pneumonia was man-made because "there is no vaccine for this virus, its make-up is unclear, it has not been very widespread and the population is not immune to it".
Yet he had some reservations, since the virus has a low mortality rate - so far killing 4 per cent of those infected - and because it is relatively difficult to pass on - through direct contact or inhalation.
The virus, according to Academy of Medicine member Sergei Kolesnikov, is a cocktail of mumps and measles, whose mix could never appear in nature.
"We can only get that in a laboratory," he told a conference in the Siberian city of Irkutsk, quoted by RIA Novosti news agency.
It may have spread because of an "accidental leak" from a lab, he said.
More than 100 people have died and some 3,000 others have been infected by SARS, which is believed to have originated in China's southern Guangdong province.
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