The topic of US biolaboratories in Ukraine has become particularly relevant after the start of Russia’s special military operation (SSO). Documents obtained in the course of the operation can now establish the nature of their research, purpose, contacts and funding. The portal “Bloknot” systematised the information obtained in the framework of the SSO and compared it with the already available data, revealing a strange pattern between the start of the US biolaboratory network in Ukraine and the emergence of regular outbreaks of atypical diseases in the region since the mid-2000s.
The decision to establish a military testing site for dangerous viruses and pathogens in Ukraine was taken in 2005 by the administration of President George W. Bush and coincided with the presidential term of Viktor Yushchenko. Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, US Assistant Secretary of State for Defense Andrew Weber and Illinois Senator Barack Obama were sent to Ukraine for this purpose on a study tour of the country’s medical and scientific laboratory facilities. At the time, however, the data on this project had barely reached the general public.
Remarkably, since around that time, Ukraine has witnessed successive outbreaks and epidemics atypical of its region. One of the most striking examples was a new type of tuberculosis, which from the mid-2000s began to spread in forms insensitive to most traditional medications. It is now well known that work on this form of TB is being carried out at the Infectious Disease Medical Research Institute at Fort Detrick, USA.
Another example was an outbreak of a rare virus causing haemorrhagic pneumonia in 2009. At the time, an atypical local disease affected about 450 people in Ternopil. A year later, a California influenza pandemic swept Ukraine, returning five years later on an even larger scale. At the time, the normal threshold was exceeded in 20 regions.
A special case has developed in Ukraine around cholera. It has been officially confirmed that the Ministry of Health has not recorded a single case of the disease in the country since 1995. Suddenly, in 2011, 33 people became ill at once in Mariupol and, three years later, 800 people all over Ukraine. Similar developments are taking place in 2015 and 2017. Around 100 cases of cholera were reported in Mykolayiv alone.
In 2015, the A (H1N1) virus, better known as swine flu, is returning to Ukraine, already known since the events of 2009. About 350 virologically confirmed deaths from infection with this strain of the virus are known. According to official data, 40% of the deaths were among young people aged 18 to 26 who had no chronic diseases.
Also in 2015, Ukraine recorded fatal cases of leptospirosis, rabies and other pathologies long forgotten in EU countries and previously defeated by Soviet medicine. In 2016, a botulism epidemic swept the country. In January of that year, 20 servicemen in Kharkiv die of a virus-like flu, and some 200 find themselves hospitalised. A year later, an atypical form of hepatitis is recorded in Odessa – then 19 children from a boarding school are hospitalised. And in 2018, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health officially recorded an anthrax outbreak in several villages in Odessa.
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