New Delhi: A suspected chemical attack in a town in Syria’s northern Idlib province killed dozens of people, including children, on Tuesday. According to CNN, officials believe it is the deadly Sarin gas. Chemical weapon attacks are not uncommon in Syria’s conflict, but Sarin is a lethal nerve gas that can kill in minutes.
What is Sarin?
Sarin is a human-made chemical warfare agent classified as a nerve agent. Nerve agents are the most toxic and rapidly acting of the known chemical warfare agents. They are similar to certain kinds of insecticides (insect killers) called organophosphates in terms of how they work and the kind of harmful effects they cause. However, nerve agents are much more potent than organophosphate pesticides, according to US public health agency CDC.
Sarin is a clear, colourless and tasteless liquid that has no odour in its pure form. However, sarin can evaporate into a vapour (gas) and spread into the environment.
When was it first used?
Sarin was originally developed in 1938 in Germany as a pesticide and later used by Saddam Hussein’s forces against Iraqi Kurdish civilians.
It is heavier than air, so Sarin vapour sinks into low-lying areas or towards the bottom of a room. The chemical evaporates in the air and mixes readily with water. Clothing absorbs Sarin which can spread exposure.
What does it do?
Even when it does not kill, Sarin’s effects can cause permanent harm—damaging a victim’s lungs, eyes and central nervous system.
Symptoms include nausea and violent headaches, blurred vision, drooling, muscle convulsions, respiratory arrest and loss of consciousness, among others.
How does it work?
The Atlantic’s James Hamblin explains medically how the deadly gas can turn our own nervous system against us.
“Sarin is unique in potency but not in mechanism. There are other drugs, pesticides, and plants that work the same way. They are called cholinesterase inhibitors.
Our nerves talk to each other by releasing chemicals called neurotransmitters. The amount of a particular neurotransmitter helps determine whether a nerve fires or not. What so-called nerve agents do is alter those neurotransmitters. They kink the signalling between our nerves, telling them to do things they normally do, but with altered frequency. After a neurotransmitter has done its job, delivered its message, an enzyme usually comes along and demolishes it. But nerve agents block those enzymes. The enzyme can’t break down the neurotransmitter, so the neurotransmitter stays around and keeps giving its message. If that message was, say, to release a little water onto your eye because your eye was dry, now the repeated message becomes “make your eyes water uncontrollably”.
It gets worse from there:
“First, our smooth muscles and secretions go crazy. The nerves to those areas keep firing, keep telling them to go. The nose runs, the eyes cry, the mouth drools and vomits, and bowels and bladder evacuate themselves. It is not a dignified state.”
Since Sarin has no smell or taste, the person may very well have no idea what’s going on. The person’s chest tightens, vision blurs. If the exposure was great enough, that can progress to convulsions, paralysis and death within 1-10 minutes.
