NEW YORK -- City officials downplayed a report that suggests the CIA is investigating whether the recent West Nilelike encephalitis outbreak was deliberately triggered by Iraqi bioterrorists.
"Nothing indicates that this was anything other than a natural outbreak," Jerome Hauer, the director of the city's emergency management office, said Sunday.The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said there was no evidence to suggest the recent outbreak was anything other than "Mother Nature at work."
Analysts at the CIA who deal with biological weapons said an Iraqi defector had said in April that Saddam Hussein was developing a strain of West Nilelike encephalitis for use as a biological weapon, The New Yorker reports in its Oct. 18-25 double issue that hit newsstands Monday.
The report recalled by the analysts was published April 6 in the Daily Mail of London. It was an excerpt from the book "In the Shadow of Saddam," written by Mikhael Ramadan.
Ramadan said he worked as one of Saddam's body doubles and that Saddam had told him of a plan to develop a strain of West Nile encephalitis that would kill 97 percent of people in an urban environment. The magazine said Ramadan was believed to be hiding somewhere in Canada or the United States.
A strain of a West Nilelike virus has claimed the lives of six people in the New York area since it was discovered in early September. The mosquito-borne virus has infected 54 people in the New York metropolitan area -- 39 in New York City, nine in Westchester county and six in Nassau.
Symptoms of the strain include fever and headache. In rare cases, the virus can cause neurological disorders and death.
The elderly, young and those with weakened immune systems are most vulnerable.
CDC officials would not comment directly on the report but issued a statement saying, "The investigation is ongoing and, to date, the CDC has no evidence that this is anything but Mother Nature at work."
Calls by The Associated Press to CIA offices in Virginia went unanswered this morning.