Designing a virus is easy. Assembling it is not. I doubt it was man made. Nature doesn't need help to fuck people up periodically,
What about stealing it?
It has to exist to steal it. That implies it was man made. Which, I think is unlikely without more data.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/eastern-equine-encephalitis
38 Are there any new biothreats on the horizon? Several potential biothreats are possible due to the ability to manipulate existing pathogens with biotechnology. Examples of this are VEEPOX and EBOLAPOX.
Preston R: The bioweaponeers. Annals of Warfare, 1998: www.hackvan.com/pub/stig/articles/bioweapons.htm
39 What is VEEPOX? What are its characteristics? VEEPOX is a chimera of smallpox and Venezuelan equine encephalitis. This combination results in the following characteristics:
▪ Highly disabling to populations
▪ Headache, disorientation, severe malaise, near coma status
▪ Disabling but not generally lethal
40 What is EBOLAPOX? What are its characteristics? EBOLAPOX is a chimera of the Ebola virus and the smallpox virus. This is a particularly nasty combination with the following characteristics:
▪ It can be replicated in test tubes or animals.
▪ It can produce a disease called blackpox, a form of hemorrhagic smallpox.
▪ It combines the high mortality of Ebola virus with the high contagiousness of smallpox
...
It's doable
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