The Czech Republic has a feather in its cap with its health system: it has the best hospital in Europe, in a position to face any type of epidemic or terrorist attack carried out by means of bacteriological weapons, such as Sars or anthrax. Yet, in the face of the economic recession, the Czech government is now considering the closure of this centre of excellence, under the white flag of austerity.
The biodefence centre of Těchonín (Foto: army.cz © Jan Kouba, Ministry of defence, Czech Republic)
It is located among the low central Sudetes mountains, in the region of Pardubice, a few kilometers from the border with Polish Silesia, in the municipality of Těchonín. The Center for Biological Defense – Centrum biologické ochrany – a futuristic health and military research centre opened in 2007 and under the control of the Ministry of Defense – is within walking distance from this village of 700 inhabitants – and the choice of its location is not casual.
Těchonín has inherited an obscure past, when the Cold War conditioned scientific acumen. A publication by Harvard University Press, “The Soviet Biological Weapons Program”, after the archives became open to the public, has brought to light several skeletons in the closet. We thus came to know that in 1965 Czechoslovakia had launched a secret plan for research and the production of chemical and bacteriological weapons that led to the construction of a real military base in the early 1970s in this remote mountain village, under the supervision of the Warsaw Treaty organization.
A perfect scenario for a spy story. The Těchonín Laboratories, in fact, turned Czechoslovakia into the most important partner for Moscow in this sector: the only research base outside the Soviet Union, where the Russians came to work and the only one where access was forbidden to the other members of socialist Europe. The collaboration between Prague and Moscow was very close and “top secret.” From the very beginning, the scope of Těchonín was to become specialized in defense, in the interest of human health in the event of an attack with unconventional weapons. It thus became a stronghold, a resource against the known chemical weapons of the time. The center stocked an incredible number of biological agents and might be considered the world’s biggest “virus bank” in the Communist world.
After the fall of the Eastern bloc, the new world called for the clean up of the still smoking ruins of the Soviet empire. In 1992, the World Health Organization ordered Czechoslovakia to destroy all high-risk materials contained at the center. A rather unwise move, perhaps, given the defensive nature of the research. Fortunately, though, the many years of training and preparation spent on preparing these rather unique specialists, was not lost, because twelve years ago, after Sept. 11 – due to fears of international terrorism – a new project was set up with a new futuristic hospital to support scientific activity. The operation was carried out in great style, and was a symbol of the determination of a small Central European nation to reaffirm its excellence. However, the new biological defense center was to prove very expensive: the work started in 2001 and completed in 2007, ended up costing 1.74 billion Czech crowns, just under € 70 million euro, with an annual operating cost of around 120 million crowns, about 4 million 800 thousand euro. It is these 120 million crowns, essentially, that are now under scrutiny and that have been considered by the government as unsustainable.
The futuristic hospital, consisting of five departments and about 50 employees, operates on three levels: isolation, training and research. The first level is used to quarantine those individuals who are at risk, for example, the military who return from special missions in areas with a high epidemic risk, and that are usually held under observation for about 24 hours before being released. In the four years of service, the center has hosted just one civilian, an aide worker who returned to the Czech Republic after a long stay in the Congo, in an area with a high incidence of Ebola, a very dangerous virus for its extremely high mortality rate and transmissibility. The quarantine period in this case, lasted two weeks, but there was no contagion. Patients who are subject to quarantine are isolated by three glass walls, have to live at a constant air pressure and are visited by doctors who have to wear heavy protective suits and dictate their analysis via computer to a colleague in an adjoining room, strictly surrounded by disposable instruments. As with any structure that is classified in the scientific world as “Biosafety Level-4″ – the most advanced level of security – around the world there are fewer than fifty of these facilities and where the recycling of waste material is carried out within the hospital boundaries: any possibility of contact with hazardous materials from and to the outside world is thus eliminated. However, the medical activity has been reduced and there are no surgical procedures; autopsies instead are considered.
Research and training are the most dynamic sectors – and in this futuristic context, consisting of nuclear microscopes, men with special suits and the sound of depressurized doors – the center houses both civil and military doctors and researchers, and pursues collaborations with medical students, especially those studying epidemiology.
So far, we have afforded a description of the excellence of a small state – the Czech Republic – but perhaps these merits are too high for its pocket.
Thus, in the middle of the economic crisis – that the Czech Republic is dealing with much better compared to the other European states – the scientific excellence, Těchonín, is now running the risk of being closed. A highly probable prospect, due to the fact that the government has already expressed its intention to decommission the site on 7th February 2013: the bitter judgment is that there is no money and it is better to destine the 120 million crowns a year to other purposes, said the official announcement. A decision that is not without objections or incongruities and that is perhaps not even so definite.
You could well argue that a bioterrorist attack against the Czech Republic is now mere political fiction, but at the same time, it is easy to recall the collective hysteria caused by the new dangerous infections that have broken out in the last decade – whose names still resound in our ears: Sars, the avian or swine H1N1 influenzal viruses, and so on. The issues at stake are numerous, but it is sufficient to dwell upon the government’s decision of throwing away a jewel that is worth almost two billion crowns.
Experts of the sector point out that the Czech Republic – despite its Těchonín BL-4 center - is strangely not part of the European Erinha initiative (European Research Institute on Highly Pathogenic Agents), financed by the European Commission, that could involve and support the activities of the Center.
Many people’s hopes depend on the positive outcome of the issues – from the scientific to the military world – that would like to maintain the structure open. Although the government, as mentioned, has already made its decision, there is talk of a hypothetical co-management plan for the site, i.e. the state would raise 50% of current funds, while the rest would be funded autonomously by the management of the bio-defense center. An assumption to which Prague has so far given very little support. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Jan Peišek, also reported that several attempts have been made to sell the center to NATO countries (the United Kingdom, for example) or to external countries (such as Serbia), but so far without any results. We will just have to wait and see. For many people, though, the desperate urge to collect money to meet the financial obligations, is playing a bad trick to the executive in office.
by Giuseppe Picheca