Nervous poison “Novichok”: relic with deadly potential

In 2018, he was poisoned by the Russian double agent Skripal, who became the critic of Putin Navalny: the neurotoxin of the Novitschok group causes paralysis that can lead to death. The Cold War chemical weapon has only been on the banned list for a year.

It is a particularly effective poison: the substance with which the Russian opposition politician Alexej Navalny was poisoned in a laboratory of the Bundeswehr, according to the analysis, comes from the group known as Novitschok. The name of the chemical weapon means something like “newcomer” in Russian. Soviet scientists developed the neurotoxin between 1970 and 1980 at the height of the Cold War at a state research institute in Moscow.

Nerve toxins are agents of war that attack nervous systems – especially enzymes that are important for communication between nerve cells and muscles. In fact, these enzymes called acetylcholinesterase break down acetylcholine, a messenger substance, which causes muscles to contract. Novitschok and some other neurotoxins such as sarin and VX render the enzyme ineffective, so the messenger substance accumulates more and more. This buildup initially triggers cramps, then paralysis, and can ultimately lead to death from suffocation or heart failure.

The poison can enter the body through the skin

In order to save victims of poisoning, their breathing and heart rate must be artificially maintained as necessary. At the same time, as in the case of Nawalnys, patients are given atropine, which blocks acetylcholine receptors and thus gives the body time to break down the toxin and produce new enzymes.

As Wayne Carter, the University of Nottingham expert cited by the British Science Media Center, the poison can enter the body “through the skin, by inhalation or ingestion”. “It is important to determine when and where the poison was administered to ensure that the poison is not yet present on the scene or has not spread,” he warns.

City contaminated for a year

Novichok was also used in the attack on former Russian double agent Sergej Skripal in March 2018 in Salisbury, England. Skripal and her daughter were exposed to the neurotoxin and narrowly escaped death. However, a 44-year-old British woman who believed a bottle later found containing the poison was a perfume died of it. The decontamination of the small town lasted almost a year. London accuses the Kremlin of being behind the attack in retaliation for Skripal’s work as a double agent. Moscow denies this.

Russian chemist Wil Mirsajanow, who emigrated to the United States in 1995, made public the existence of the secret program Novichok after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “Only the Russians” developed these toxins, he said after the Salisbury attack. To his knowledge, Skripal and his daughter were the first people the neurotoxin was used against.

It was only after the Skripal attack that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) added Novichok to its list of banned substances last year. This was the first amendment to the list since it came into effect in 1997.

–

.

45seconds is a new medium, do not hesitate to share our article on social networks to give us a solid boost. ????