If coronavirus is not culprit, is SARS a bio-weapon?

Canadian doctors dealing with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) have cast doubt that it is a coronavirus that causes the deadly disease, which has killed more than 350 people around the world.

The mounting death toll exacted by SARS in China has also triggered speculation that the virus could ultimately be traced back to a leak from military bio-weapons programs.

At the SARS conference being held in Toronto, Canadian doctors said they found a coronavirus — believed to cause the disease — in just under half of their SARS patients.

Dr. Frank Plummer, scientific director of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory, said, "We’re puzzled as to why we are finding this virus in about 40 percent of the probable (SARS) cases."

While only 40 percent of SARS patients seem to be infected, there were some people who were infected but did not have SARS, the Canadian doctors also said.

United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deputy director of infectious diseases Stephen Ostroff said he was not fully convinced that a coronavirus is the only cause of SARS.

"It certainly suggests that this particular virus plays a very important role in SARS, whether it tells the whole story or not remains to be seen," Ostroff said, saying they still are not certain other agents are not at play.

US data, according to Ostroff, also showed that not all probable SARS cases — those that show severe respiratory distress — tested positive in labs for the coronavirus.

Although most reporting favors a natural origin for SARS, a bio-weapon link should at least not be ruled out, according to Richard Fisher, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think tank.

"While there is no reported evidence that SARS is indeed a weapon, there are plenty of ways that a real weapon with the properties of SARS could prove decisive in a military conflict," he said.

China’s most famous dissident, the exiled Wei Jingsheng, in an opinion piece this week cited rumors circulating in China, such as the idea "that SARS emanated from China’s biological weapons research facilities."

Without explicitly dismissing the possibility, Wei noted in the piece, published in the International Herald Tribune, that Chinese President Hu Jintao had visited a bio-military research facility to dampen the rumors.

Many analysts consider a link between SARS and bio-weapons far-fetched, citing the lack of any evidence to support it.

"This speculation is pretty baseless," said Stephanie Lieggi, an East Asia expert at the California-based Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

"I have seen nothing in recent reports that would support any connection between SARS and biological weapons," she said.

No known biological weapon has all the properties so far associated with SARS.

But rough parallels — deadly viruses that reproduce and spread through a human population by multiple means — do exist, according to analysts.

The main argument against the theory is the low kill ratio associated with SARS, as more than 90 percent of those struck by the virus seem to recover.

And although it is transmitted relatively easily, it seems to be less contagious than most known viral bio-weapons, according to experts.

But it is exactly the innocuous nature of SARS that could make it militarily useful for someone wanting to sow panic and prompt political instability, Fisher argued.

"A seemingly ‘natural’ epidemic would lessen suspicion of the main ‘enemy state’ by the target country and its main allies," he said.

"With that target government increasingly preoccupied by a major health crisis, it would then be distracted from other possible threats, thus increasing the chances an outside attack could succeed," Fisher said.

The theory that SARS was a leaked weapon would depend on the existence of an offensive biological weapon in China, and not just a defensive effort aimed at protection from foreign attack.

According to US intelligence sources, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) does have an offensive program, although it appears to have been scaled down over the past two decades.

The Institute of Military Medicine near Beijing has been engaged at least in defensive research, while some other biotechnology facilities could have both civilian and military uses.

One crucial but unknown factor is the role played by biological weapons in China’s military doctrine.

Overseas analysts simply do not know for sure whether China envisages the use of biological weapons in future wars.

Strategic planners in China are fascinated by the concept of "asymmetrical warfare," which facilitates victory over a stronger enemy, such as the US, by hitting it where it is relatively weak.

Much of this research is believed to focus on high-technology capabilities such as satellite jamming, rather than biological weapons.

However, the exact thinking of the higher rungs inside the PLA remains obscure to the outside world, leaving several possibilities open.

"In the absence of clear knowledge of PLA doctrine in this area, one can presume that the PLA at a minimum maintains a stock of bioweapons for retaliation purposes," Fisher said.

Plummer and Ostroff agree that the threat of SARS globally is far from over and that much about the illness remains a mystery.

"Now is not a time to let our guard down… These kinds of microbes don’t just disappear," Ostroff said, noting that US officials are spreading a "wider net" to look at people with symptoms linked to SARS, such as cough, fever and shortness of breath.

Earlier, laboratories in Hong Kong and the United States isolated a new strain of coronavirus from patients.

Researchers in Germany then infected monkeys with this virus and found they developed all the symptoms of SARS, which satisfied the World Health Organization (WHO).

Donald Low, chief microbiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto who has taken an active role in treating SARS cases, said: "There’s not only a threat of SARS in the future but also a threat of pandemic influenza, other viral infections."

For Low, who himself had been put in voluntary quarantine for 10 days but had not developed SARS symptoms, the question of outbreak may be over in Toronto, but SARS "blips" might crop up from imported cases.

"I think the major outbreak is behind us. What we’re going to have to prepare now for the future is the importation of other cases," he said.

Top US scientists are moving rapidly on several fronts to jump-start treatment and prevention research and vaccines against SARS, which could be ready in one to three years, The Washington Post said Wednesday.

These efforts by the National Institute of Health (NIH) came as many private companies have been hesitant to invest in SARS research, not certain whether the disease will be a lasting phenomenon.

The newspaper quoted Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a unit of the NIH, as saying, "Quite frankly, I don’t think SARS is going to fizzle out."

"This is a really unusual situation where you are in the midst of the evolution of a new disease," he said.

A new survey by the Harvard School of Public Health has found about one-third of Americans are worried about SARS and many more are paying close attention to the unfolding epidemic.

Twenty-one percent said they use a disinfectant at home or work, 16 percent said they avoid people who they think may have recently visited Asia and 14 percent avoid Asian restaurants and stores.

The telephone survey of a nationally representative sample of 1,003 adults was conducted on April 11 to 15, and has a margin of error of three percent.

Meanwhile, The Washington Times, in an editorial on Wednesday, said while SARS may have an industry-specific impact in America, it will have a negligible effect on the US economy as a whole so long as it doesn’t spread out of control.

"While SARS has reduced America’s trade with Asia — and could affect, for example, the makers of computers, software, machinery, industrial instruments — the disease will have only a very small effect on the overall economy," the Times added.

The US-ASEAN Business Council, which President Arroyo will address on May 20 during her US state visit, said other than business travel plans being suspended, SARS has not affected major US investment decisions in the region.

Christopher Fedderson, the council’s manager for Philippine affairs, told The STAR the general business reaction has been "let’s find a way to deal with SARS so we can continue to do business with the region. They’re not saying let’s pull away and see what happens, and go back when it’s safe."

While scientists looked at lessons learned from the SARS outbreak, others have begun pointing fingers about what Canada might have got wrong in its SARS fight.

Opposition politicians criticized Health Minister Anne McLellan’s direction of the SARS crisis, saying she failed to strengthen screening measures to prevent the import or export of the illness.

The WHO on Tuesday cited Ottawa’s recent promise to enhance SARS screening measures as one of its reasons for lifting the travel advisory against Toronto.

Canada has announced tougher screening measures for SARS, saying passengers leaving Toronto and Vancouver airports would have to fill out a health questionnaire before being allowed to depart.

Canada’s failure to screen outgoing passengers for SARS was one of the reasons that led the WHO to issue an advisory against travel to Toronto. WHO lifted the advisory on Tuesday.

McLellan said that before being allowed to check in for flights, passengers have to fill in a questionnaire on whether they had any SARS symptoms.

"Check-in will not take place if that form has not been filled in," she said, adding that any passenger who indicated they were suffering from a symptom associated with SARS would be interviewed by health officials.

If, after the interview, there was any doubt about the passenger’s health, he or she would be denied boarding.

Until now, departing passengers have merely been invited to read through an information sheet listing the details of SARS. McLellan also said officials would soon start testing special infrared machines designed to detect people with fevers.

McLellan showed clear signs of irritation at repeated questions about why she had not introduced the tougher screening earlier.

"Screening is obviously very important but it doesn’t come without cost and it doesn’t come without inconvenience, and in fact you probably have a responsibility to start informing the public about the exact nature of that inconvenience and perhaps your outlets could send you to Singapore," she said.

Singapore has introduced some of the world’s harshest measures to deal with the illness, quarantining 3,001 people and threatening them with fines or jail if they leave their homes. — With Jose Katigbak, STAR Washington Bureau, AFP