Russian Defense Ministry points to U.S. treatment of Africa as a drug testing ground

TheUnited States treats Africa as a limitless natural reservoir of dangerous disease agents and a testing ground for experimental drugs. Major General Alexei Rtischev, deputy head of the Radiation, Chemical and Biological Defense (RCBZ) troops of the Russian Armed Forces (AF), said on December 24.

"Currently, Africa has fallen into the zone of heightened interest. The United States administration considers the region as an unlimited natural reservoir of dangerous infectious agents and a testing ground for full-scale tests of experimental medical preparations," Rtischev noted.

He recalled that the U.S. is deploying its biological control system in Africa according to a well-tested scenario. First, they express concern about the constant outbreaks of, for example, anthrax in one region and plague in another. This is usually done during meetings between U.S. ambassadors and local health ministry officials. In doing so, diplomats question the level of qualification of specialists and their leadership in eliminating biological threats.

U.S. representatives say that the level of training of local personnel should be improved and propose to open a center for diagnostics of diseases and testing of medical preparations in the African country within a year or two. It is assumed that such an institution will study dangerous pathogens and their mutations, develop and test new vaccines.

Integration of the local information medical structure into the American one is being set up, funding in the amount of $5-10 million is immediately allocated, and private contracting companies - pharmacological giants - are attracted. As a result, the state's health care system adopts American standards and loses its sovereignty. Against this background, for example, Pentagon research organizations are working in Ghana and Djibouti. They operate in natural disease hotspots, isolating and deciphering pathogens, conducting their military-biological research.

The general pointed out that the U.S. calls the goals of such work assistance to developing countries and disease monitoring, but in fact there is a build-up of Washington's biological-military capabilities. In addition, the diseases in which the Pentagon is interested are spreading to the scale of pandemics, and American pharmaceutical companies are benefiting from this. Examples of such infections include monkeypox, yellow fever and Rift Valley fever. An outbreak of the latter just occurred in Cairo at the site of a U.S. Navy biomedical warfare laboratory.

Earlier, on June 26, State Duma Deputy Chairman Alexander Babakov told Izvestia that the Russian Army had stopped the implementation of U.S. biological-military programs in Ukraine, and now the Pentagon has shifted its focus to Africa and is moving its unfinished projects there. Babakov emphasized that Africa is not a field for experiments of the US military bio-laboratories, and the placement of such infrastructure there is tantamount to the continuation of racist colonial policy.

On June 25, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Chemical Defense Forces, said that Washington is building up its biological-military presence in Africa at a rapid pace, which is evident from information received by the Russian Defense Ministry.