Biological Weapons and Pandemic Vectors
Biological Weapons and Pandemic Vectors

Summary/Abstract: Biological warfare is not an invention of the modern age. It has been practised since ancient times, when the Hittites sent plague-sick people to Egyptian camps to decimate their enemies before the battle. The difference between the epochs is made only by current technology, capable of multiplying,selecting, diversifying and hybridising the vectors of biological warfare. Thus, at present, a bacterium, grown in a laboratory-transformed pantry, can be more lethal than any chemical weapon.Considering that, in the modern age of public access to information, the line between spontaneous, natural pandemic and biological attack followed by the outbreak of a pandemic is narrowing, the vectors of a natural pandemic can always become, in the eyes of the public, vectors of a biological attack.Conversely, until the discovery of the “zero patient” – in which natural genomic mutations occurred – any biological weapon can be considered a “natural mutation” responsible for triggering a pandemic with devastating effects.Therefore, what are the characteristics of a biological weapon? What are the main categories of biological weapons? What are the main pandemic vectors?

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