• Question: could the common cold be weaponised?

    Asked by to Bethany, Hannah, Keith, Peter, Ramya on 22 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Ramya Bhatia

      Ramya Bhatia answered on 22 Jun 2014:

      Yes, in theory it can be.
      There is a lot of speculation about the use of bioweapons as the next big weaponry. there have also been some reports suggesting that people have already developed a highly infectious flu strain.

      However, it is important to know that it is not an easy task to do that and it takes many decades to make such weapons and there are lots of rules and regulations to ensure that things like this are not easily done or spread

    • Photo: Bethany Dearlove

      Bethany Dearlove answered on 22 Jun 2014:

      What’s referred to as the ‘common cold’ can be caused by a number of viruses, including rhinovirus, influenza and adenovirus – it’s just really hard to tell which as they all cause similar symptoms.

      There have already been concerns about the weaponisation of influenza (flu) as it is so common, and there have been large, natural outbreaks previously that show its potential for wiping out huge numbers of the population. The 1918 flu, for example, killed more people than died from all causes during World War I. Last year scientists stopped working on the H1N1 strain of flu, commonly know as bird flu, due to worries about security and whether publishing their findings would encourage bioterrorism. However, research has now begun again, as scientists believe the benefits (understanding what could happen and how so we can prepare for it) far outweigh the risks, as long as the research takes place in secure labs.

    • Photo: Peter Elliott

      Peter Elliott answered on 23 Jun 2014:

      It would take a lot of hard work to achieve but it is indeed possible. I remember hearing a story once and I emphasise that it is just a story. It was speculated that terrorists were working on combining the viruses that cause flu and Ebola together. Fortunately I think it is unlikely to ever happen but it would be a very scary bio weapon indeed.

    • Photo: Keith Grehan

      Keith Grehan answered on 24 Jun 2014:

      As Bethany said, there are a number of viruses that cause disease we normally call the common cold.
      A common cold is really a set of symptoms that we take together and call a cold but this can actually be caused by any of a number of viral infections and so the idea of turning it into a weapon it would depend on which virus we were talking about.
      During the cold war there was significant research on both sides to potentially weaponise the flu virus but thankfully this did not yield results as the idea of another outbreak of something like 1918 flu is pretty scary.
      A key problem with using any form of bioweapon and especially one based on a virus is that the mutation rates are so high that control may always be a problem. Diseases would be very likely to spread far beyond their original targets and by the time efforts were made to control them they may have changed substantially from the original weapon.
      Bioweapons are scary things and hopefully we will never see one used.

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