It follows warnings from MI5 to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office that al-Qaeda 's terror network is actively seeking to recruit scientists and university students with access to laboratories containing deadly viruses and weapons technology. Extensive background checks from the security services, using a new vetting scheme, have led to the rejection of overseas students who were believed to be intent on developing weapons of mass destruction.
A Foreign Office spokesman said the students had been denied clearance to study in the UK under powers 'to stop the spread of knowledge and skills that could be used in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery'. He added: 'There is empirical evidence of a problem with postgraduate students becoming weapons proliferators.
The findings raise questions over how many terrorist suspects may have already infiltrated the UK's laboratory network. In addition, a number of well-educated Iraqi scientists - funded by Baghdad - infiltrated several British microbiology laboratories in the run-up to the Gulf war of Britain has about laboratories in hospitals, universities and private firms where staff have access to lethal viruses such as Ebola, polio and avian flu or could acquire the technology and expertise to develop deadly weapons.
Whitehall sources remain concerned about the number of countries intent on acquiring the materials and knowledge to develop a nuclear or biological warfare capability. John Wood of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control said: 'Any scientist would say it's important that we know who is working in our laboratories, and also why they are working there. The trial of two NHS doctors, Mohammad Asha, 27, a Jordanian national, and Bilal Abdulla, 29, from Iraq, who allegedly plotted widespread carnage through car bomb attacks in London's West End and Glasgow airport last year, has intensified scrutiny on the radicalisation of students.
Last Updated. After laboring for more than a year to make polio virus from scratch, researcher Jeronimo Cello telephoned a scientific supply company in Iowa and ordered two long pieces of ready-made DNA. A few weeks after the pieces arrived in the mail, he became the first person to produce a simple form of life using only written genetic code as a starting point.
But Dr. Cello's success has some people worried. Terrorists, they say, could use similar techniques to create deadly pathogens simply by locating the gene data on the Internet and then ordering the materials through the mail. Cello's work, says that the terrorists could synthesize other simple viruses, including the flu, HIV and Ebola, and eventually perhaps more sophisticated pathogens like smallpox.
Wimmer says. The journal Science is publishing the polio-making recipe Friday, prompting criticism from some scientists. Craig Venter, formerly the head of the gene-sequencing company Celera Genomics Group and now the head of a nonprofit think tank in Rockville, Md.
He says the work represents only a minor technical achievement but carries an alarmist message that could frighten the public and prompt legislators to put more controls on basic research. The polio project also raises important philosophical questions.
Although viruses are considered a marginal form of life because they can't survive apart from a host, this appears to be the first time that scientists have created any life form in the laboratory starting only from a written blueprint of DNA letters. In the 20th century alone, smallpox killed million people, the BBC reported. Hantavirus pulmonary syndrome HPS first gained wide attention in the U.
A few months later, health authorities isolated hantavirus from a deer mouse living in the home of one of the infected people. More than people in the U. The virus is not transmitted from one person to another, rather, people contract the disease from exposure to the droppings of infected mice. Previously, a different hantavirus caused an outbreak in the early s, during the Korean War, according to a paper in the journal Clinical Microbiology Reviews.
While the virus was new to Western medicine when it was discovered in the U. During a typical flu season, up to , people worldwide will die from the illness, according to WHO. But occasionally, when a new flu strain emerges, a pandemic results in a faster spread of disease and, often, higher mortality rates. Dengue virus first appeared in the s in the Philippines and Thailand and has since spread throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the globe, according to Clinical Microbiology Reviews.
A vaccine for Dengue was approved in by the U. Food and Drug Administration for use in children years old living in areas where dengue is common and with a confirmed history of virus infection, according to the CDC. In some countries, an approved vaccine is available for those years old, but again, recipients must have contracted a confirmed case of dengue in the past.
Those who have not caught the virus before could be put at risk of developing severe dengue if given the vaccine. Two vaccines are now available to protect children from rotavirus, the leading cause of severe diarrheal illness among babies and young children.
The virus can spread rapidly, through what researchers call the fecal-oral route meaning that small particles of feces end up being consumed. Although children in the developed world rarely die from rotavirus infection , the disease is a killer in the developing world, where rehydration treatments are not widely available. The WHO estimates that worldwide, there are more than 25 million outpatient visits and two million hospitalizations each year due to rotavirus infections.
Countries that have introduced the vaccine have reported sharp declines in rotavirus hospitalizations and deaths. The virus likely emerged in bats initially, then hopped into nocturnal mammals called civets before finally infecting humans, according to the Journal of Virology. After triggering an outbreak in China, SARS spread to 26 countries around the world, infecting more than people and killing more than over the course of several months, according to History.
The disease causes fever, chills and body aches, and often progresses to pneumonia, a severe condition in which the lungs become inflamed and fill with pus. SARS has an estimated mortality rate of 9. The virus may have originated in bats and passed through an intermediate animal before infecting people, according to Nature. The initial outbreak prompted an extensive quarantine of Wuhan and nearby cities, restrictions on travel to and from affected countries and a worldwide effort to develop diagnostics, treatments and vaccines.
Since its appearance, the virus has caused over five million deaths worldwide, according to Reuters. Common symptoms include fever, cough, loss of taste or smell and shortness of breath and more serious symptoms include breathing difficulties, chest pain and loss of mobility.
On Aug. In December , this vaccine became the first to be approved after a large clinical trial, according to Nature.
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