Melioidosis - Biological Warfare Potential

Biological Warfare Potential

There has been interest in melioidosis because it has the potential to be developed as a biological weapon. It is classed by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as a Category B agent. B. pseudomallei, like its relative B. mallei which causes Glanders, was studied by the U.S. as a potential biological warfare agent, but was never weaponized. It has been reported that the Soviet Union was also experimenting with B. pseudomallei as a biological warfare agent.

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