CHEMICAL weapons are nasty. But they rarely affect more than a few square kilometres, before blowing away. And yet, under the Chemical Weapons Convention, if a member country is plausibly accused of making the things, inspectors land on its doorstep within days 鈥� and it has to let them in.
Pandemic flu will cause far more deaths than any chemical weapon we know. Yet there is no way to verify alleged outbreaks. Last week, a report posted by 鈥渘ine young people鈥� on a Chinese website stated that 121 people in 18 villages have died of bird flu in the Chinese province of Qinghai. Maybe it is baseless rumour or maybe the flu pandemic has started, in which case international health experts need to get in there now (see 鈥淐an Tamiflu save us from bird flu?鈥�).
China has officially denied any human cases. But then it also denied reports of SARS which turned out to be true. Last week China finally admitted it has foot and mouth disease in cattle, after years of denying rumours. Evidence is mounting that China had H5N1 bird flu in its poultry for years before it came clean. For now, World Health Organization officials have no option but to believe Beijing鈥檚 denials of bird flu in people. In two years they鈥檒l have rules requiring nations to report outbreaks 鈥� but none requiring independent verification.
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This is not good enough. The stakes are too high. The WHO should be able to inspect Qinghai. If China is telling the truth it should have no problem with this. Bring on the Infectious Diseases Convention.
