158 suspicious letters spotted in Ukraine

Bacteriological warfare is on practically everyone’s lips, despite experts assuring that there is very little likelihood of Osama bin Laden’s people ever taking an interest in Ukraine. Yet, a kind of mania is spreading. The latest reports point to 158 “suspicious letters” received by ordinary citizens, the Foreign Ministry, the Verkhovna Rada’s business correspondence department, and several district administrations. Volodymyr Moroz, first deputy director general of the Ukrposhta [Ukrainian Postal Service], says the letters are malicious practical jokes and the main problem in Ukraine today. That the letters are acts of hooliganism is evidenced by children’s handwriting on the envelopes, the funny manner in which they are addressed, and forwarding addresses. One such address was quoted at a press conference held by the Ukrposhta management on October 24: “Osama bin Laden, Mt. Hoverla [in the Carpathian Mts.], Cave No. 5.” There are also inscriptions like “From Afghanistan with Love” or “This letter is anthrax-infected.” Naturally, all the envelopes were opened with every precaution and thoroughly examined by experts. No anthrax was found. According to Valery Mazurenko, chief of postal security, such antics cause the postal networks great damage; in addition to individual protective gear (rubber gloves, masks that have to be replaced at least once every couple of days), a lot of money has to be spent on testing. Under the criminal code, deliberately misleading information about a threat to citizens’ security entails a fine in the amount of 50 to 100 untaxed citizen’s minimum incomes; if such information has grave consequences or is repeatedly provided, the punishment is a term of 2-5 years in prison. However, the hooligans seem to be having the time of their life and wreaking hell with the law. Olena Donchenko, Ph.D. in sociology and head of the mass psychology and organizations laboratory at the Institute of Social and Political Psychology, such acts can be easily explained from the psychological standpoint: “Such wanton tricks are a kind of aggression that cannot be vented by any socially safer acts.” She believes that the current mental and emotional status of the population is the result of media influence, keeping people’s nerves on edge, along with filling them with fear and aggressiveness. Suppressing the latter could cause or aggravate mental and physical disorders, including heart disease and cancer. The laws of the emotional process say that before long the current emotional strain will turn into mass apathy — and she thinks this would affect the coming elections, because people in this condition are easier to manipulate. “There is no mania in Ukraine today, but it is being cultivated, so people are getting used to a state of collective psyche, the result being that a person can no longer adequately respond to events,” says the expert.

In fact, there is evidence supporting just such an assumption. Fear of anthrax should have worn off by now, because the disease, regrettably, is nothing new in Ukraine. Unlike America, where the last anthrax case was registered in 1976, people in Ukraine have learned to combat it. Courtesy of the veterinary medicine department and sanitary-epidemic service, owing to mass inoculation of livestock, epizootic incidence has shown a yearly decline of late. Volodymyr Horzheev, deputy chairman of the state department for veterinary medicine, says they have already gone over this year’s quota. Moreover, anthrax is not conveyed from one person to the next and it is contracted through food, by eating contaminated meat. Experts say each case can be treated simply, by administering antibiotics, while the intestinal and lung forms are rare.

One cannot be too careful. Ukraine’s painfully rich experience in various kinds of disasters came in handy this time. Not long ago, Emergency Management Minister Vasyl Durdynets held an interministerial conference discussing mass biological protective measures. A complex of sanitary-epidemiological and veterinary medical measures was adopted, concerning research centers, institutes, regional and special facilities. The latter include milk-processing and meat-packing factories, as well as food markets with input and output control laboratories checking foods for infectious bacteria. The same applies to health-care institutions, municipal and housing facilities, as well as postal service. Apart from supplying personnel with individual protective gear, emergency procedures were formulated in the event of suspicious posting.

INCIDENTALLY

Steps will be taken to enhance the protection of pathogenic cultures. Interfax Ukraine quotes Petro Verbytsky, chief veterinary inspector, and chairman of the veterinary medicine department at the Ministry of Agrarian Policy, as saying that the state veterinary service has a collection of over 1,000 pathogenic cultures, bacteria, and viruses. The main virus bank is at the research-and-control institute for biotechnology and bacterial cultures. Similar banks are located in research institutes and laboratories studying the causes of diseases, diagnosis, and vaccines; one such bank is at the central veterinary laboratory in Kyiv and at regional and district laboratories. Mr. Verbytsky stresses that no one is working on “enhancing pathogenic viruses... Ukraine has never had any bacteriological weapons.” Also, the biggest threat of acute diseases comes from the earth, through domesticated animals, or even people. A great many anthrax-infected cattle have been buried in Ukraine.

Archival data show that such burial sites date from the 1940s- 1950s and no one is sure about their location. The situation is aggravated by the fact that anthrax spores live for hundreds of years and can penetrate the environment not only by direct contact, but also through water and earthworms.