JAKARTA – Health minister of Indonesia stopped sending bird flu viruses to a research laboratory, situated in the U.S. for fear, Washington could make biological weapons out of it, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said “it is the nuttiest thing, I’d ever heard”.

The systems, which cover vaccines from Dengue fever to the Ebola virus, are highly concerned with scientific communities. Although they were quietly put in place more than a decade ago, they could now be more relevant because of recent concerns about bird flu, U.S officials said.

They make “no scientific sense,” said Peter Palese, chairman of the microbiology department, He said, “the more vaccines out there, the better,” he said. “It’s a matter of protecting ourselves, really, so the bird flu virus doesn’t take hold in these countries and spread.”But some scientists say, the idea of using vaccines for bioweapons is far-fetched. Under normal conditions duration of six weeks required to approve export licenses for any vaccine on the list, said Thomas Monath,

That could make it harder to contain an outbreak of bird flu among chickens in, say, North Korea, which is in the region hardest hit by the virus. Sudan and Iran already have recorded cases of the virus in poultry and Syria is surrounded by affected countries. Cuba, like all nations, is most vulnerable because the disease is delivered by migratory birds.

Kumanan Wilson, researcher in University of Toronto said, “That would pose a much graver threat to the public than the theoretical risk that the vaccine could be used for biological warfare.”

The danger of biological warfare use depends on the specific types of virus or bacteria. But bird flu vaccines contain inactivated viruses that can’t be resuscitated through genetic engineering.