On the Question of Outbreak Declarations under a Biological Weapons Convention Compliance Regime

June 1999

In negotiating a legally-binding Protocol to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the States Parties to the BWC are considering a requirement to declare outbreaks of disease. The FAS Working Group recommends against this. Any requirement for outbreak reporting under an arms control treaty could have negative consequences for world health, and the need for outbreak reporting as part of the compliance regime in the Protocol is questionable, for the reasons listed below.

Should the Protocol Require Outbreak Declarations?

1. Some States Parties would like to require reporting only of unnatural outbreaks, but there is no way that natural and unnatural outbreaks can be distinguished initially, without on-site investigation (see endnote ⁽¹⁾.

2. Involvement of the World Health Organization (WHO) in outbreak reporting under the Protocol would inject arms control politics into outbreak reporting in general and thus discourage compliance with WHO's reporting requirements. WHO cannot risk weakening its overall strategy against infectious diseases in this way.

3. A requirement in the Protocol to report outbreaks to the BWC organization would mean dual reporting, both to the BWC organization and to WHO, which has its own reporting requirements. Undoubtedly this would be considered a burden, particularly because the reports would most likely be issued by different National Ministries. Discrepancies between the two reports would be bound to arise, requiring additional resources for their resolution and eroding confidence in both reports.

4. A Protocol requirement for outbreak reporting could place many States Parties in a position of technical non-compliance. Few, if any, nations have the public health infrastructure to comply adequately. Furthermore, international help is often needed to diagnose and control serious outbreaks; this multinational involvement would further complicate a national reporting requirement, and a reporting requirement might inhibit international aid.

5. Requiring declaration of outbreaks under the Protocol might weaken support for cooperative programs for the prevention of disease under Article VII (BWC Article X). Potential benefits under the Protocol could thus be lost.

6. For these and other reasons, including the lack of reliably effective means for enforcement of outbreak reporting requirements, it would seem that declaration of outbreaks would have little value for the Protocol's compliance regime. Adequate outbreak reporting cannot be assumed; compliance with annual reporting of unusual outbreaks under the existing BWC Confidence-Building Measures has been poor, and compliance with WHO's International Health Regulations (which require timely reporting of certain outbreaks) is not very good either. Furthermore, the official reports that are filed are often delayed for political or economic reasons.

7. More timely and informative sources of outbreak information are available.

Other Outbreak Information Sources

WHO's Outbreak Verification List comes out weekly and is distributed electronically to collaborating laboratories and others with a need to know, including international organizations. This list contains unofficial reports from WHO outposts and other sources, including Canada's Global Public Health Intelligence Network (which scans Internet sources automatically for use by WHO and the Canadian government) and ProMED-mail.

ProMED-mail, the independent, global electronic rapid reporting system open to all sources, covers human, animal and plant diseases, unhampered by political restraints. ProMED-mail, with 17,000 participantsand contributors in more than 150 countries, is highly regarded and is publicly available at no cost.

Member countries of OIE (Office International des Epizooties) are obliged to report outbreaks of "List A" animal diseases within 24 hours. OIE disseminates this information in immediate communiques and weekly reports in their publication Disease Information. OIE's List A includes most of the animal diseases listed in the April Rolling Text of the Protocol.

These and other sources, together with regular consultations with WHO, OIE, and other international organizations, will provide more and better information to the BWC organization than could be obtained from required declarations. The Protocol need include only general statements about cooperating with such organizations.

Outbreak Reporting as a Confidence-Building Measure

Reporting of unusual outbreaks is already a politically-binding requirement under the present Confidence-Building Measures. This measure should be retained in its present form. It provides a means for States Parties to reinforce confidence in their good faith and compliance whenever an outbreak occurs that might otherwise raise questions.

Investigation of Outbreaks

Linked with the issue of reporting outbreaks is the on-site investigation of suspicious outbreaks. The Biological Weapons Convention does not explicitly prohibit the use of biological weapons, although their use is indirectly banned by the Convention's prohibitions on the acquisition and possession of biological weapons. Legal standing for on-site investigation, under the Protocol, of outbreaks suspected to be caused by the release or use of biological weapons can be established through the indirect ban and by:

â Including in the preamble to the Protocol the relevant statements in the preamble to the BWC, in the Final Declaration of the Fourth Review Conference of the BWC, and in the mandate given by the Special Conference to the Ad Hoc Group of States Parties to negotiate the Protocol; and including the decisions in the Final Declarations of the Second and Third BWC Review Conferences to include the reporting of unusual outbreaks in the annual information exchange adopted as a Confidence-Building Measure.

â Including among the functions of the BWC organization: a) monitoring of information available from outside sources on infectious disease outbreaks, and of outbreak reports by States Parties under the Confidence-Building Measures; and b) consultation with States Parties about outbreaks within their territories whenever a question arises about the possible relevance of an outbreak to the BWC and the Protocol. This monitoring and consultation process would provide a basis for field investigation of outbreaks, if necessary.

Safeguarding WHO

WHO does not wish to be brought into the politics of investigations. Factual data released by WHO, or the absence of an official report to WHO, could be useful in support of a request to the BWC organization by a State Party to the Protocol for a field investigation; but WHO should never be asked to provide an opinion related to an alleged treaty violation, nor should it be asked to provide its own personnel to assist in an investigation related to treaty compliance, or to accept outbreak reports mandated by the BWC Protocol. The BWC organization and not WHO must bear the full responsibility for determining whether there may have been or has been a treaty violation. Because of the importance of WHO for global public health, every effort must be made to avoid politicizing it or linking it in any way to interests other than public health. WHO should not be expected or requested to take any role in connection with the BWC Protocol.

Note:

Some examples of the initial difficulty of distinguishing between natural and unnatural outbreaks:

1. Legionnaires Disease was unknown before it broke out in 1976 in a Philadelphia hotel during a conference of US military veterans. A BW attack was initially suspected but was eventually disproved during a five-month investigation.

2. A highly lethal, previously unrecognized disease, later identified as Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome, broke out in the Four Corners region of the United States in 1993. It took an intensive, six-week investigation utilizing the full resources of the US Centers for Disease Control to identify the cause of the outbreak and rule out the pervasive rumors that an escaped biological weapon agent was responsible.

3. An outbreak of food poisoning caused by Salmonella occurred in 1984 in Oregon, USA, in which 750 people became ill after eating at a salad bar. This was assumed to be a natural outbreak, but continued investigation found evidence many months later that the salad bar had been intentionally contaminated by a local sect as a trial for incapacitating voters in an upcoming election.