DAVOS, Jan 27: The world needs an effort similar to that behind the creation of the atomic bomb to tackle the multi-faceted threat of bio warfare, US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Thursday.

"We need to do something that even dwarfs the Manhattan project," Mr Frist told the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Manhattan project was the codename for the United States's World War Two effort to devise an atomic weapon.

"The greatest existential threat we have in the world today is biological. Why? Because unlike any other threat it has the power of panic and paralysis to be global." He predicted that the world would experience another bio weapon attack within the next decade, following the limited casualties seen when anthrax was sent through the US mail system in 2001.

Next time, the death rate could be a much, much higher, said Massachusetts Insitute of Technology Professor John Deutch. An attack using the smallpox virus is overwhelmingly the largest risk, he believes.

The disease was officially eradicated three decades ago but Deutch said it was possible former Soviet stocks were still at large or even that small quantities could be extracted from graves. "Every country has a vulnerability here," he said.

VACCINE: In a bid to protect citizens, the US government has ordered millions of doses of smallpox vaccine as part of a wide-ranging security drive in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.

But experts warned that other avenues were open to would-be terrorists, with diseases such as plague and Ebola haemorrhagic fever virus options for weaponisation. More worryingly still, sophisticated groups might in the future use genetic engineering to produce hybrid microbes against which there are no defences.

Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Human Genome Institute, said such developments raised the question of whether there should be restrictions on publication of some scientific research in biology. -Reuters

Opinion

Revamping the ecosystem

Revamping the ecosystem

Key to high-quality performance of public sector institutions lies in attracting, retaining and motivating civil servants of high calibre throughout the system.

Editorial

Rain havoc
Updated 19 Jul, 2025

Rain havoc

Thursday’s events must be seen not as an isolated disaster, but as a warning of what lies ahead.
Shattered Strip
19 Jul, 2025

Shattered Strip

THE Gaza siege has now crossed 650 days and the situation continues to take one ugly turn after another. True, even...
Battling drugs
19 Jul, 2025

Battling drugs

PAKISTAN’s war on drug trafficking has been ongoing for several years. But the country remains awash in the ...
Soaring again
Updated 18 Jul, 2025

Soaring again

The lifting of the ban by the UK will lead to several welcome developments.
Terror in Kalat
18 Jul, 2025

Terror in Kalat

THE unrest in Balochistan is increasingly taking on an ugly and dangerous colour, with repeated, indiscriminate...
Economic exclusion
18 Jul, 2025

Economic exclusion

FOR all the progress made in Pakistan towards the inclusion of women across the sociopolitical divide, comprehensive...