Warheads laced with diseases such as Zika virus or Ebola could ‘wipe out swathes of humanity

Retired US Admiral and NATO Commander James Stavridis warns something must be done to prevent the weapons from falling into terrorists’ hands.

The Sun December 26, 2016 – FUTURISTIC warheads laced with deadly diseases such as the Zika virus and Ebola could wipe out swathes of humanity if they fall into terrorists’ hands, it is claimed.

These missiles, known as biological weapons of mass destruction, could kill up to 20 percent of the world’s population – 400 million people – in a pandemic not seen since the Spanish Influenza.

He writes in Foreign Policy that world leaders must discuss – given our growing ability to manipulate living organisms – how to contain the spread of such evil technology.

He added: “The rise of low-cost synthetic biology technologies, the falling cost of DNA sequencing and the diffusion of knowledge through the Internet create the conditions for a breakout biological event not dissimilar to the Spanish influenza of roughly a century ago.

“In that plague, by some estimates, nearly 40 percent of the world’s population was infected, with a 10 to 20 percent mortality rate.

“Extrapolated to our current global population, that would equate to more than 400 million dead.

“Most alarming would be that either rogue nations or violent transnational groups would gain access to these technologies and use them to create biological weapons of mass destruction.”

He went on state curbing such incidents could prove more difficult than containing the bomb – as it is impossible to tell if biological developments are intended to be used for good or evil.

There is a history of such weapons being used throughout history, though a dozens of countries signed a treaty in the 1970s to ban their creation.

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