Troops to get Saddam plague jab
BRIAN BRADY WESTMINSTER EDITOR
AN EXPERIMENTAL plague vaccine will be given
to thousands of British troops in the event of war against Iraq,
Scotland on Sunday can reveal.
It is feared Saddam Hussein has developed a super-strain of the
‘Black Death’ bacterium which could wipe out millions.
The Ministry of Defence last night confirmed that its scientists
had created a new vaccine, which they expect to be licensed for
use within weeks.
The inoculation will be among a cocktail of drugs - including
anthrax vaccine - administered to British troops if Saddam ignores
demands to allow inspections of his weapons stockpile.
It can also be revealed that the Department of Health is
considering stockpiling the same vaccine for use on civilians in
the event of an attempt to spread the plague in the UK.
But former soldiers who blame the cocktail of inoculations they
received before the 1991 conflict for ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ urged
troops to refuse the new vaccination.
The National Gulf Veterans & Families Association, which recently
complained that soldiers going to Iraq would be offered the same
anti-anthrax drug administered to troops in 1990, warned that the
new drug was being rushed into use.
"We were actually given a plague vaccine in 1990, and even if this
is a completely different drug, I would advise soldiers to avoid
it," said spokesman Jim Moore.
"The risks from taking these injections still far outweigh the
small risk of being subjected to chemical attack if they do go to
Iraq.
"The one advantage they have now is that the vaccines are
voluntary, although there are concerns about that because it means
the troops would have even less comeback than us if things went
wrong this time."
But government officials were last night insisting that their new
vaccine was both effective and necessary, given international
anxiety about Saddam’s arsenal of chemical weapons.
"If the plague virus got into the hands of terrorists, it could be
spread very rapidly through the civilian population," one
government source said. "It would only take a few ‘suicide
carriers’ to walk around the London Underground for the infection
to spread quickly to thousands of people."
The fast spread of the disease, which has an incubation period of
up to five days, could have a devastating effect on military units
where thousands of people spend weeks together.
Scientists from the secret MoD research centre at Porton Down,
Wiltshire, are now close to the end of final clinical trials after
four years of development. Once licensed, the new drug would be
rushed into production in collaboration with a major
pharmaceutical company.
One official confirmed that it was "a reasonable assumption" that
troops sent to Iraq would be offered the new protection.
The Department of Health, which has been closely involved with the
development of the vaccine, is also considering whether to
stockpile the drug for civilian use. Health Secretary Alan Milburn
has already ordered over 20 million doses of the smallpox vaccine
to protect the population in the event of a terrorist-inspired
epidemic of the lethal disease.
A senior DoH source said no decisions on the plague vaccine had
yet been made, but admitted that "vaccination of parts of the
civilian population is an important consideration".
Bubonic plague claimed almost 2,000 lives out of 18,000 cases
across the world between 1980 and 1994, although the last reported
deaths in Britain occurred almost a century ago.
In 1997, French scientists discovered a new strain of bubonic
plague that defied most conventional cures, and the British and
United States governments now fear Saddam is developing his own
super-strain.
Tony Blair’s dossier of evidence to support his hardline stance
against Iraq detailed how Saddam tried to obstruct United Nations
inspectors’ efforts to investigate the scale of his biological
weapons programme. He allegedly created forged documents to
account for bacterial growth media, imported in the late 1980s
specifically for the production of anthrax, botulinum toxin and
plague.
Blair has also ordered officials to line up a second multi-million
pound delivery of smallpox vaccine amid growing fears that the
deadly virus could be used in a terrorist attack on the UK.
The Prime Minister has demanded a further increase in the
government’s stockpile of the vaccine, after his top health
adviser warned that he should provide enough doses to inoculate
every single man, woman and child in the country.
Health officials have been given the go-ahead to purchase at least
10 million more doses of the smallpox vaccine, to add to the 20
million ordered earlier this year, as the government inches
towards its new 60 million target.
Scotland on Sunday has also established that Britain’s
pre-September 11 store of smallpox vaccine can be diluted up to
five times - potentially stretching the three-million-plus
existing stocks to 15 million doses.
Senior government sources last night admitted that this time they
would have to open the new vaccines deal to full competition from
drugs companies across the world after their decision to award the
original £32m contract to Powderject Pharmaceuticals sparked
furious protests.
Opposition parties and rival firms complained that the Department
of Health had not followed the rules on opening government
contracts to competitive tender before giving the deal to
Powderject, run by Labour donor Paul Drayson. Ministers refused to
explain the full reasons for the decision, citing ‘national
security’ - but they claimed Powderject was the only company that
could provide the type of vaccine required in the quantities and
timescale specified.
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