SARS BIOWEAPON

AFP: Rumours Abound Of SARS Link To BioWeapons

BEIJING (AFP) -- The mounting death toll exacted by Sars in China has triggered speculation that the virus could ultimately be traced back to a leak from military bio-weapon programmes.

Although most reports favour a natural origin for Sars, a bio-weapon link should not be ruled out, according to Mr Richard Fisher, a senior fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based think-tank.

'While there is no reported evidence that Sars is indeed a weapon, there are plenty of ways that a real weapon with the properties of Sars could prove decisive in a military conflict,' he said.

Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, in an opinion piece published in the International Herald Tribune this week, cited rumours circulating in China such as the idea 'that Sars emanated from China's biological weapons research facilities'.

Many analysts consider a link between Sars and bio-weapons far-fetched