Bioterrorism

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Discussion3

Statistics3

Effect of bioterrorism on a community5

Financial Impacts on a community5

Goals for the future6

Conclusion6

Bioterrorism

Introduction

Bioterrorism is one of the major public health issues being face by every nation today. It is a form of terrorism in which there is an intentional release of biological agents such as viruses, bacteria and toxins that cause illnesses in animals, plants and human beings. Warfare is a widely use method, also categorizing it as “germ warfare”. These biological agents may be occurring naturally in the environment, often cheap and easily obtained. These diseases can even be a form modified humanly. Terrorist did alterations and mutations in them to make them more dangerous, causing lethal and disabling diseases easily. It is mostly resistant to medicines and spread widely in the environment. They can spread through water, food or air. Therefore, this is an intertwined and complex ethical issue. Terrorist use these agents because they cannot be detected easily and causes illness taking hours or days to become apparent. Some diseases cause by bioterrorism can transmit from person to a person such as small pox virus and some such as anthrax is not contagious. United States define bioterrorism as “the unlawful use of violence and force against individuals or force government or any other segment in persistence of social or political objectives”.

Discussion

Statistics

Bioterrorism is an easily accessible weapon that can kill hundreds of thousands in a relatively little quantity of time this is the danger that biological weapons present. It dates far back in Ancient Rome, usage of feces to spoil enemies faces were common. In 1346, bubonic plague was being use in the siege of Kaffa. In 1763 during, a French and Indian war small pox (an infectious disease caused by the Variola virus) was used as a weapon. In 1977, government took steps to eradicate Smallpox completely. In the early 19th century, deviants of the anthrax bacterium were found everywhere in the world making it a biological weapon of selection. Approximately 50 kg of Anthrax released upwind around a city estimated by WHO, due to which 500,000 could produce 125,000 cases with 95,000 deaths. In 2001, anthrax broke out in U.S which was transmitted through the farm animals, commonly present in wool (which caused 5 deaths from 23 cases). It is spread by the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. In this case, a very modest amount of anthrax spores cause tremendous panic in the local population, but only a few casualties were seen(Rózsa, L.,2009).

Disease or agent

Incubation period

Environmental stability

Lethality (death)

Effective dose

Lethal Agents

 

 

 

 

Plague

1-6 d

stable for 1 year

high

100-500 organisms

Ebola virus

2-6 d

unstable

high

10-100 organisms

Botulism

1-5 d

relatively stable

high

0.001 mcg/Kg weight

Ricin

1-2 d

stable

high

3-5 mcg/Kg weight

Cholera

1-3 d

unstable

high

10-500 organisms

Smallpox

7-17 d

very stable

high

10-100 organisms

Anthrax

1-6 d

very stable for years

high

10,000-50,000 spores

Table 1:Widespread Biological Agents used for bioterrorism (NicolsonG.L et al, 2008).

Effect of bioterrorism on a community

A bioterrorism attack includes a majority of dead or illness within people in a huge geographic area. Patients with multiple altered diseases and numerous, deadly animals of diverse species indicate a mixed attack. Bioterrorism is a most deadly danger to the national ...