Archive - Friday, 27 February 2004


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New hopes on plague threat

SCIENTISTS at a Wiltshire chemical research base have made a breakthrough in the hunt for a vaccine against the bubonic plague.

Ministry of Defence researchers based at Porton Down believe a vaccine could be licensed by 2006.

Nicknamed the Black Death, the plague was responsible for the deaths of millions of people throughout Europe during the Middle Ages.

It is feared terrorists could use the plague as part of a present-day biological attack on a western city.

Scientists started working on finding a cure for the bubonic plague after the first Gulf War in 1991, when it was feared Iraq had access to stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.

The breakthrough came when a vaccine developed at the base passed its first safety trial.

Plague still affects up to 2,500 people a year. It can cause fever, nausea, diarrhoea and inflamed lymph nodes, which then ooze blood.

It is caused by the Yersina pestis bacterium, and is often passed onto humans through rat fleas.

If untreated it is deadly for around two-thirds of its victims.

l A second inquest into the death of RAF serviceman Ronald Maddison at the Porton Down laboratories will open on May 5.

The inquest, which is expected to take two months, will be held at the former Trowbridge magistrates' court building.

Security will be tight, with police officers working with Wiltshire County Council staff to ensure proceedings run smoothly.

A decision to hold a second inquest was made by Lord Woolf last year when he overturned an original verdict of misadventure.

Fellow servicemen claimed 20-year-old Maddison died as a result of coming into contact with the deadly nerve agent Sarin, and that he was tricked into becoming a human guinea pig believing he was helping to find a cure for the common cold.

He died at the base in 1953, with the original inquest held in secret for reasons of national security.

Sarin was used with catastrophic effects in a terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway 10 years ago.

The world's media is expected to descend on Trowbridge for the resumed inquest, which is costing Wiltshire taxpayers upwards of £250,000.

Extra coroners have had to be drafted in to cover the work of David Masters, who has been working on the Porton Down case since last year.

Last week assistant deputy coroner Richard Van Oppen had to be brought out of retirement to cover inquests at Chippenham Magistrates' Court.