Scientists have managed to decipher the genome of the microbe and to learn more about Soviet biological weapons.
American scientists have managed to extract DNA of anthrax from the bodies of the two victims of the epidemic that occurred in Sverdlovsk in 1979, through the release of spores from a secret laboratory. Scientists have managed to decipher the genome of the microbe and to learn more about Soviet biological weapons.
Under natural conditions the chance of occurrence of epidemic of the Siberian ulcer among people is minimal, but its causative agent Bacillus anthracis produces spores — dry capsules in which the microbes can tens of years to survive in the soil. Trillions of these spores can be turned into a bioweapon and spraying over the crowd of people: plague kills hundreds of people before authorities determine the cause of the disaster.
The Soviet Union signed the 1972 Convention banning the development and possession of biological weapons, but their secret program in this area is not closed. The incident of 1979, the authorities initially associated with the meat of infected cattle, however, in 1992, Boris Yeltsin had allowed American scientists to investigate the outbreak. The researchers came to the conclusion that the cause was the emissions of a cloud of anthrax from the biological laboratory of the military town No. 19.
Now another team of scientists was able to isolate Bacillus anthracis DNA from the remains of the victims, passed in 90-ies in the United States. It turned out that the Soviet military was not trying to modify the genome of bacteria, making it more resistant to antibiotics and vaccines. From ordinary anthrax Sverdlovsk strain differs by only 13 pairs of bases. Apparently, the military specifically struggled with the inevitable when growing bacteria in the laboratory is an accelerated evolution.
