During and after the war, the US and the UK developed major biological weapons programmes. In 1969, President Nixon ended the US biological weapons programme and announced that the US would destroy its existing stockpiles of biological weapons. This announcement led to the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention that banned developing, storing or stockpiling biological weapons. Despite years of strong evidence of the USSR building biological weapons, it was not until 1992 that Russian President Boris Yeltsin acknowledged that the accident happened at a biological weapons production facility run by the Soviet military. Researchers working for a biological weapons programme called it "public health in reverse".

Source: The Express Tribune March 17, 2026 16:47 UTC