Bio - war

Bio - war refers to biological war. It means that biological organisms are used as weapons to carry out the war. It is latest form of war. It is carried out by spreading the pathogens in specific part of geographical region to deliberately spread a deadly disease. The diseases spread through bio war may bring skin disorders, respiratory disorders, muscular disorders or digestive disorders.

An important feature of bio war is to ensure that pathogens load on society is so large that it brings about an epidemic - so that large part of population suffer from same disease and medical care becomes more difficult to manage such a menace.

The information about the use of pathogens as weapons is necessary because of many reasons.

a) Bio weapons can be used as means of terrorism.

b) Bio weapons produce diseases that one difficult to diagnose because they rarely occur naturally and often mimic other diseases.

c) Public health workers must be aware of the threat of bio war and terrorism to minimize the effects of the biological attack.

d) Physicians have to recognize the diseases resulting from bio weapons.

e) Public has to adopt safety measures against bio war.

Realities of biological warfare and terrorism

1.They are more threatening than the conventional weapons.

2.They are easy to obtain and are inexpensive.

3.Their detection and prohibition are very difficult.

Potential biological weapon agents

Why countries and terrorists choose bio weapons

1. Bio weapons are very cheap.

2. They kill large number of people.

Example: 10 gms of anthrax can kill 1.3 million people.

3. They are invisible, odorless, tasteless when released.

A popular example of such bio-war is Anthrax. It was recently used by followers of Osama Bin laden on American population in response to their attack on Afghanistan. Number of diseases - which can be easily spread by air, water or contact have the potentiality to infect large section of population in such bio - wars, unscrupulous and antisocial people engage in large-scale production of spores responsible for such diseases and use them to wage bio wars.