What are biological warfare agents/bioweapons?
Bioweapons can generally be defined as:
Micro-organisms or other biological agents and toxins developed, produced or used for hostile purposes, which can lead to illness, poisoning or death in people, animals or plants.
Biological weapons in the narrow sense of the term are weapons or special instruments
which are developed or constructed to be used to spread biological warfare agents and for hostile purposes.
Micro-organisms (e.g. viruses, rickettsia, bacteria, fungi and parasites) are considered as potential biological warfare agents because they are very contagious, have a high mortality rate and against which no effective defence (both preventive and curative) currently exists; this also covers those which are already recognised as biological weapons. These primarily concern micro-organisms in Risk Groups 3 and 4.