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The US Military And The Ebola Outbreak
Economicpolicyjournal.com
By Robert Wenzel
I continue to suspect that the Ebola outbreak in western Africa be the result of U.S. military biowarfare research gone awry.
As I previously reported:
The epicentre of the current Ebola epidemic is the Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. BeforeItIsNews claims the hospital houses a US a biosecurity level 2 bioweapons research lab. That claim is unconfirmed, however, this we do know.
Analysis of clinical samples from suspected Lassa fever cases in Sierra Leone showed that about two-thirds of the patients had been exposed to other emerging diseases, and nearly nine percent tested positive for Ebola virus. The findings, published in this month’s edition of Emerging Infectious Diseases, demonstrates that Ebola virus has been circulating in the region since at least 2006—well before the current outbreak,reports Global BioDefense.
According to GBD, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases has been operating in the area since 2006, supposedly working on “diagnostic tests.”
Author Randal J. Schoepp, PH. D. reports that because the USAMRIID team just happened to be working on disease identification and diagnostics in the area, they had pre-positioned assays in the region to address the ebola outbreak:We had people on hand who were already evaluating samples and volunteered to start testing right away when the current Ebola outbreak started.
The laboratory testing site in Kenema is supported by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center-Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System. Other contributors to the work include the Department of Defense Joint Program Executive Office-Critical Reagents Program, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Cooperative Biological Engagement Program, and the DTRA Joint Science and Technology Office.
Metabiota Inc., a non-government organization (NGO) is also involved in the testing. It lists among its partners, the Department of State, Biological Engagement Program and the Department of Defense, Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Advisors to the NGO include Admiral Gary Roughead, former US Chief of Naval Operations.
In an August 1 story, the Army Times informed:
Filoviruses like Ebola have been of interest to the Pentagon since the late 1970s, mainly because Ebola and its fellow viruses have high mortality rates — in the current outbreak, roughly 60 percent to 72 percent of those who have contracted the disease have died — and its stable nature in aerosol make it attractive as a potential biological weapon.
Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have sought to develop a vaccine or treatment for the disease.
Last year, USAMRIID scientists used a treatment, MB-003, on primates infected with Ebola after they became symptomatic; the treatment fully protected the animals when given one hour after exposure.
Two-thirds of infected primates were protected when treated 48 hours after exposure, according to a report published last August in Science Translational Medicine.
