International partnerships are crucial for strengthening global health security and reducing the impact of infectious diseases. These collaborations form an important pillar of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). However, disinformation is now posing a significant threat to this international cooperation.

A good example is a Canadian-funded project in the Kyrgyz Republic aimed at building a human and animal health laboratory. In 2006, Canada’s Weapons Threat Reduction Program approached the government of the Kyrgyz Republic to enhance biosecurity, biosafety, and biocontainment capabilities. The Canadian government committed $60 million to build a high-containment laboratory that would serve as the central repository for dangerous pathogens, consolidating them from several existing but vulnerable facilities.

Unfortunately, in early 2011, this project became the target of an aggressive, sustained, and unfounded disinformation campaign. The fabricated allegations characterized the lab as a “laboratory of death,” falsely claiming that Canada intended to use it to develop biological weapons. Other false claims suggested that the lab posed a danger to local citizens and that Canada was exploiting the Kyrgyz Republic.

The immediate impact of the disinformation campaign was the termination of the project. Had the lab been completed, it would have provided enormous health security benefits for the Kyrgyz Republic, the surrounding region, and globally. A less visible but significant impact was Canada’s longer-term decision to redirect its biological threat reduction and Article X-related activities from Central Asia to other regions.

Partnerships like those between Canada and the Kyrgyz Republic are dedicated to strengthening public health facilities, biosafety, biosecurity, and disease surveillance for peaceful purposes. They have nothing to do with weapons. The example of the Kyrgyz lab shows the importance of states speaking out and condemning disinformation campaigns that target peaceful cooperation among BWC States Parties.