Biosecurity

Soviet Anthrax Mishap Could Have Been Worse

It had been called the “biological Chernobyl.”

The routine maintenance of safety air filters at a biological weapons facility in the city of Sverdlovsk in the Soviet Union led to the release of airborne anthrax in early April 1979. The plume of deadly spores floated downwind over a 50-kilometer area.

Sixty-six people and hundreds of animals were killed.

But it could have been even worse, according to a new forensic investigation of the spores’ DNA by an international team of scientists, reported in a new working paper available online at a Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory pre-pub site.

The spores were likely from a master supply that had not yet been genetically engineered to be drug resistant, according to the anthrax genomes.