China and Ebola

Instapundit links to a Canadian site about how a Canadian lab sent Ebola virus to China (on a commercial flight). And something about the Chinese scientists working in the Canadian labs who were fired.

"I think there will need to be an inquiry into the scientists to potentially see whether or not they were compromised or any elements of their work were compromised and that China gained illegal or improper access to Canadian intellectual property ... to see what China may have gained access to without knowledge, prior to this incident," West says.

Hmm... China stealing "intellectual property". Who wudda thot?

Place conspiracy theory here. Is China trying to weaponize Ebola as a bioweapon? Or just trying to make money off of their vaccine?

SciAmerican notes that China has a new Ebola vaccine, and is trying to test it in the present day epidemic in the Congo (Where the one dose Ebola vaccine by Merck is the only one certified, although there is a two dose version by another company that is being tested now).

The head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Gao Fu, is reported to have said that a team of experts will travel to the DRC on Friday, bringing with them an unspecified number of doses of vaccine. “We will seek to use the Chinese developed vaccine there to help with control and prevention of the disease, but for the present the vaccines will likely only cover Chinese living in Congo,” Gao is reported as saying in China Daily.

Chinese living in the Congo? Why, yes. They not only have interest in oil, but are there trying to get a monopoly on rare earth metals.

CGTN website notes:

Fearing a major Ebola epidemic, the U.S. European Union, Russia, and China are developing Ebola vaccines. At present more than 15 vaccines are at various stages of testing. Pharmaceutical companies have committed to ramping up the production capacity once the vaccine passes crucial tests, the WHO statement last year said. “This could be the fastest vaccine roll-out in history.”

StrategyPage has been following the wars, chaos, and Ebola in the DRC. LINK

July 25, 2019: A Chinese oil company has halted work in western Uganda due to the Ebola virus threat. Uganda’s major oil fields are near Lake Albert, which borders Congo. The Chinese operate Ugandan fields along with two European partners, Total and Tullow Oil.

China has invested a lot in Africa, and unlike the west, tends to send their own people to run these "development" programs.


A couple years ago, Angola had a major Yellow Fever outbreak, and a couple of Chinese who went back to China were infected.

Yellow fever spreads via mosquitoes, and I guess hospitalizing the cases stopped the spread, or it could have killed thousands.

Just as an aside: on their article about the Central African wars, StrategyPage notes this:

 July 24, 2019: Due to the Ebola virus threat, Saudi Arabia has banned the entry of any tourists or Hajj pilgrims from Congo. The Kingdom said that it reached this decision in order to protect the lives of other Hajj pilgrims.

The Saudis are aware of the  possibility of various epidemic diseases among the pilgrims, many of whom are from poor third world countries.

And the last European Smallpox outbreak (1972) was brought there by a Yugoslavian pilgrim.

Luckily, most Europeans had received Smallpox vaccination in the past, and by revaccinating 18 million people the epidemic was stopped.

However, if you really want to worry, read this 2001 (pre 911) war game scenerio which proposed a release of smallpox by terrorists at an Oklahoma truck stop.

After 9-11, and especially after the Anthrax letters, our Public health clinic received instructions on how to organize the response: From using schools as hospitals, to vaccinating first responders, to how to do"ring vaccinations" to contacts.

Since I had worked in Africa, I was the one who had to read and organize the possible response. Luckily, only Anthrax (which does not spread person to person) was used to terrorize the population (by whom is another controversy which I won't get into here).

But actually superflus might be the real danger, as the SARS epidemic showed. Then there is MERS (coming to a hajj pilgrim near you), bird flu, and yellow fever (via Brazil), not to mention Dengue, which is now affecting the Philippines.

How bad is our Dengue epidemic? So bad that they are considering restarting the Denguevax program...
the vaccine was blamed for causing a few deaths, but in a severe outbreak would probably save a lot more lives than those with side effects (the deaths were due to improper screening of candidates).