Soviet anthrax accident killed 60

By CNN Moscow Bureau Chief Jill Doughterty

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- In April 1979, there was an accident at "Compound 19," a Soviet military facility in the city of Sverdlovsk, now called Yekaterinburg.

Within a few days, people needed hospital treatment. They had extremely high fevers and difficulty breathing.

Years later, the hospital's chief doctor, Margarita Ilyenko, still cannot forget one of those patients.

"He was still alive when I walked in ... a young man, we even talked a bit. Then suddenly spots began to appear all over his body, he vomited blood and died," she says.

As more and more people fell ill, Soviet authorities blamed it on tainted meat.

VIDEO A 1979 Soviet military accident led to more than 60 civilian deaths from anthrax. CNN's Jill Dougherty reports. (October 15) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)

The Pentagon believed it was anthrax secretly produced by the Soviets for biological weapons.

More than 60 people died. But it would be more than a decade before the cause was made public -- a military accident.

Since 1972, an international convention has outlawed developing or stockpiling biological weapons.

But Russia and the United States still have small quantities of anthrax and other agents for peaceful purposes, like making vaccines.

Some experts believe Russia still has larger quantities of biological weapons that were never destroyed. The Russian government denies that.

In the Koldunova Research Centre near the city of Saratov, chemists in protective suits develop vaccines for animals and humans against anthrax and other lethal diseases, such as the Ebola virus and smallpox.

For the most part, centres like these are well protected, says one Russian specialist. But potential bioterrorists, he says, have many options.

"There are even laboratories in some countries that will sell these microbes, you can simply tell them you need anthrax for scientific research reasons. You can buy it on the black market, you can steal it, you could have a secret underground laboratory," says Veniamin Cherkassky of the Central Institute of Epidemiology.

Experts both in Russia and the United States say anthrax spores are easy to obtain but difficult to turn into weapons of mass destruction.

The anthrax used in the United States, for example, targeted comparatively few people. Its biggest effect may be psychological -- sowing fear among large numbers of people.