Shortly after the terrorist attacks of 11th September 2001 mysterious letters that were contaminated with anthrax spores began to circulate in the USA. Five people died, contaminated by the anthrax bacteria. Similar letters, although harmless, then surfaced, sent by copycat perpetrators. Such letters also appeared on the scene in Switzerland. Even though these contained no anthrax bacteria, they caused considerable economic damage. Zurich Airport, for example, had to be partly closed temporarily. Switzerland was faced with an unusual situation, which, with hindsight, was not handled in an optimal manner.

Situation has improved

Michael Guery from the ETH Center for Security Studies (CSS) (1) demonstrates in a recently published study (2) how Switzerland could better protect itself against bioterrorist attacks. "The situation in Switzerland has clearly improved since 2001," he says. "In particular, the network of experts has been strengthened. We all know one another personally today and exchange information at regular meetings."

Although the responsible authorities are doing all they can to optimise preventative measures, in his work Guery uncovered various weak spots and made suggestions for improvement. One basic problem in Switzerland, for instance, is that the competencies of the Federal and the Cantonal authorities are not always clear. "Bioterrorists disseminate fatal diseases on purpose. In principle, because the Federal authorities are responsible for such diseases, this is where the co-ordination of B-defence should lie. At the same time bioterrorism it is also a question of inner security, which falls under the responsibility of the Cantons," explains Guery.

Cantons must work together

That this situation is less than satisfactory in concrete circumstances became evident in 2001. The post-office was confronted with over a thousand potentially contaminated letters and parcels. The ways in which such matters are handled differ slightly from Canton to Canton and this made it difficult for the post-office to deal with the crisis in an optimal way. "The goal must be to set up equivalent B-defence concepts in the Cantons," says Guery. Models for a uniform, intercantonal procedure already exist.

As in other areas of society, financial means for B-defence are limited. This led, for example, to the closure at the beginning of 2004 of the Institute for Clinical Microbiology in St. Gallen, which had served as a reference laboratory for viruses relevant to bioterrorism. The gap this had left had not yet been filled. As a replacement, there are plans at present to set up a new high-security unit at the Spiez Laboratory (3). "This would, however, call for investment of around 30 million CHF," says Guery.

Controversial shifting of funds

By comparison with many other countries, added Guery, Switzerland was still fortunate. Far more comprehensive precautionary measures were set up in the United Kingdom or the USA. Whether the financial means of the latter were used efficiently was, however, disputed. At any rate, a meeting of international experts in Fürigen (Canton Nidwalden), which CSS organised at the end of April, showed that opinions differed even within the USA. Various health experts, for example, complain that, since the attacks in 2001, far less funding is available to combat the very worst diseases. Diseases such as AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis killed millions of people every year, while "only" five people had died as a result of an anthrax attack. The massive shifting of funds could not therefore be justified.

In autumn 2001 letters like this, contaminated with anthrax spores, were sent to politicians and journalists. (Picture: FBI) large

"It is extremely difficult to assess the potential risk of biological weapons," says Reto Wollenmann, a scientist at CSS who organised the experts' meeting. Genetic technology, especially, opened up uncomfortable perspectives. "It is not impossible that future terrorists could use anthrax bacteria that are immune to antibiotics, or highly virulent viruses with much shorter incubation periods," he adds. "It is also conceivable that B-weapons could be produced in which harmless bacteria are modified with the aggressive properties of other bacteria. Such new weapons would be especially problematical for crisis management, because they would be difficult to trace and could leave the authorities tapping in the dark–perhaps for a long time.

The dangers of defence

In this context, Anthony Cordesman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington (4) pointed out that various groups were actively involved in gaining access to B-weapons. After the war in Afghanistan it transpired that al-Qaida's attempts in this direction were far more advanced than western intelligence had supposed before the war. Moreover, for intelligence it was difficult to identify dangerous activity in time to counteract it, especially as the components involved could be used for either military or civil purposes.

For the western community of states there was an additional problem in that the intensive discussion of the subject also served to increase the danger. "By extending our defences against B-weapons, more people have access to information and expertise," explains Wollenmann. "There are more laboratories with dangerous goods and that can be broken in to or from which dangerous matter can escape. The risk is increasing that an insider will do something at some point." Critical voices pointed out that the anthrax strain that killed people in autumn in 2001 was itself a B-weapon developed at a laboratory in the US. "A number of experts today," according to Wollenmann, "are of the opinion that the answer of the USA has become part of the problem."