APA Style

PREPAREDNESS FOR BIOTERRORISM

Preparedness For Bioterrorism

Introduction

The threat of Biological warfare is not a novel threat and certainly not without precedent . Details from ancient wars reveal that confronting armies used to dump animal cadavers into the reservoirs of their enemies to cause diseases by contaminating their supplies . There are also accounts that in medieval warfare , Mongolian armies threw bodies of people who had died of bubonic plague in Crimean City . Evidences also suggest that in the course of their conquest of New World , western armies disturbed blankets infested with

plague and small pox virus to the native population in to wipe them off without raising sword Advances in genetic engineering and genomic in recent years hold out the promise of major improvements in our capabilities for controlling infectious diseases . What is far less well known is that the very same knowledge has been applied in a series of offensive biological weapons programmes in major states over the past century In both the World Wars in Iran Iraq War , and in Iraq 's domestic campaign against dissents biological agents were used along with conventional warfare tools However , the biological agents in hands of terrorist is constitute a grave threat due to capability of terrorists sneaking in deadly virus and bacteria in any congregation of unsuspecting masses , causing illness and death at vast scale and potentially affecting thousands others . The threat is especially severe because before the zealous determination of few insane terrorists that no government , even the superpower America can guarantee complete protection to its citizens . Before the threat of biological attack the entire society is vulnerable . Biological terrorism , in its most severe form , is a greater threat to humanity

Reasons for Using Biological Weapons

Psychologists and criminal experts have looked deeply into the reasons that attract terrorists towards use of biological weapons . According to their analysis biological weapons provide following three advantages that are not provided by conventional methods

1 . Large number of causalities : Theoretically , biological agents , after the nuclear weapons , are potentially most capable of inflicting large number of causalities . Terrorist aiming large number of people give serious consideration to biological weapons , especially on the cost ratio basis . Although a nuclear weapon can certainly create far more devastation , but making a nuclear weapon extremely difficult and expensive , and also poses a far greater risk of detection . Firearms and explosives , although inexpensive and readily available , do not have a limited and contained capacity to kill . Biological weapons offer an unlimited range in comparison , they are less detectable , less dangerous to the terrorist , and have greater killing capability . It is projected that a successful biological attack can have the final toll of over ten thousand causalities due to multiplying effect of index cases . Although all the attempts of biological attack are not likely to succeed because most pathogens disseminated may not be ingested at all by the population and would get neutralize from natural causes . However , a biological attack in closed space , such as a theatre or shopping mall...