Bio-terrorism

BIO-TERRORISM

The use of infectious agents or other harmful biological or biochemical substances as weapon of terrorism. Bio-terrorism is terrorism by international release or dissemination of biological agent such as bacteria , virus and some types of fungi or toxins.These are also used to caused illness or death in people , animals or plants.Biological agents can be spread through air , water or through food.These agents are typically found in nature but could be mutated or altered to increase their ability to caused diseases , make them resistant to current medicine or to increase their ability to be spread into the environment.Bio-terrorism is an attractive weapon because biological agents are relatively easy and inexpensive to obtain than others.
Military leaders , however ,have learned that as military asset.For military leaders it is difficult to use a bio-weapon in a way bio-weapon can not only affects the enemy but also friendly force.
A biological weapon is useful to terrorist mainly as a method of creating mass panic and distribution to a state or a country.
TYPES OF AGENT


There are microorganisms which mostly use in bio-terrorism . Bacteria , Viruses and some types of fungi which is caused diseases.



  Bacteria
                                Virus



There are three types of agent
CATEGORY A 

These high-priority agents pose a risk to national security, can be easily transmitted and disseminated, result in high mortality, have potential major public health impact, may cause public panic, or require special action for public health preparedness.
  •    Tularemia or "rabbit fever"
  •    Smallpox
  •    Botulinum toxin
  •    Bubonic plague
  •    Viral hemorrhagic fevers
  •    anthrax
CATEGORY B
Category B agents are moderately easy to disseminate and have low mortality rates.


  •     Brucellosis (Brucella species)
  •     Epsilon toxin of Clostridium perfringens
  •     Food safety threats (for example, Salmonella species, E coli , Shigella, Staphylococcus aureus)
  •     Glanders (Burkholderia mallei)
  •     Melioidosis (Burkholderia pseudomallei)
  •     Psittacosis (Chlamydia psittaci)
  •     Q fever (Coxiella burnetii)
  •     Ricin toxin from Ricinus communis (castor beans)
  •     Abrin toxin from Abrus precatorius (Rosary peas)
  •     Staphylococcal enterotoxin B
  •     Typhus (Rickettsia prowazekii)
  •     Viral encephalitis (alphaviruses)
  •     Water supply threats (for example, Vibrio cholerae,Cryptosporidium parvum)

CATEGORY C 
Category C agents are emerging pathogens that might be engineered for mass dissemination because of their availability, ease of production and dissemination, high mortality rate, or ability to cause a major health impact.
  •     Nipah virus
  •     Hantavirus
  •     SARS
  •     H1N1 (a strain of influenza)
  •     HIV/AIDS
Bio-terrorism is more effective than other treats or other war.In 21st century biological war is more dangerous than the other weapon.

During the 19th century, the use of biological warfare became more sophisticated. With the new founded knowledge of Koch’s postulates and the development of modern microbiology, isolation and production of stocks of specific pathogens became possible.


Bio-terrorism as a Realistic Threat

The threat of bio-terrorism is more likely to occur now than ever before, including the following:

1. As evident from past and present cases of bio-weapons, nations and dissident individuals and groups exist that have both the motivation and access to skills to develop and disperse biological agents.

2. The former Soviet Union’s bio-weapons facility that was used to produce weaponized infectious diseases, such as plague and anthrax, has missing stockpiles of its bio-weapons. Intelligent reports indicate the stockpiles were sold on the black-market to Middle Eastern
countries . Furthermore, the scientists who worked in the offensive biological weapons program until the early 1990s have gone to other countries, such as North Korea and other Middle Eastern countries and are suspected to be collaborating with those governments in their
clandestine bio-weapons programs .

3. Biotechnology is growing tremendously, and there is readily information available on the Internet as to how to develop and manufacture sophisticated types of biological weapons with modest cost . Furthermore, there are numerous publications in scientific journals, explaining how to produce very sophisticated, highly pathogenic agents .

4. Individuals with basic biology and engineering training could develop effective weapons at little cost .


                   HISTORY OF BIO-TERRORISM


  • Shortly after the start of World War I, Germany launched a biological sabotage campaign in the United States, Russia, Romania, and France. At that time, Anton Dilger lived in Germany, but in 1915 he was sent to the United States carrying cultures of glanders, a virulent disease of horses and mules.
  •  Germany and its allies infected French cavalry horses and many of Russia’s mules and horses on the Eastern Front.
  • In 1972 police in Chicago arrested two college students, Allen Schwander and Stephen Pera, who had planned to poison the city's water supply with typhoid and other bacteria. Schwander had founded a terrorist group, "R.I.S.E.", while Pera collected and grew cultures from the hospital where he worked.
  • In 1980 the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the eradication of smallpox, a highly contagious and incurable disease. Although the disease has been eliminated in the wild, frozen stocks of smallpox virus are still maintained by the governments of the United States and Russia. Disastrous consequences are feared if rogue politicians or terrorists were to get hold of the smallpox strains. Since vaccination programs are now terminated, the world population is more susceptible to smallpox than ever before.
  • In Oregon in 1984, followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh attempted to control a local election by incapacitating the local population. This was done by infecting salad bars in 11 restaurants, produce in grocery stores, doorknobs, and other public domains with Salmonella typhimurium bacteria in the city of The Dalles, Oregon. The attack infected 751 people with severe food poisoning. There were no fatalities.
This incident was the first known bioterrorist attack in the United States in the 20th century. It was also the single largest bioterrorism attack on U.S. soil.


Planning and response

Planning may involve the development of biological identification systems. Until recently in the United States, most biological defense strategies have been geared to protecting soldiers on the battlefield rather than ordinary people in cities. Financial cutbacks have limited the tracking of disease outbreaks. Some outbreaks, such as food poisoning due to E. coli or Salmonella, could be of either natural or deliberate origin.
   Preparedness

Aspects of protection against bioterrorism in the United States include,
·         Detection and resilience strategies in combating bioterrorism.
·         Implementation of the Generation-3 automated detection system.
·          Enhancing the technological capabilities of first responders
·         Enhanced equipment for first responders.
·         Excelsior Challenge.
·          Project BioShield

Biosurveillance

In 1999, the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Biomedical Informatics deployed the first automated bioterrorism detection system, called RODS (Real-Time Outbreak Disease Surveillance). RODS is designed to draw collect data from many data sources and use them to perform signal detection, that is, to detect a possible bioterrorism event at the earliest possible moment. RODS, and other systems like it, collect data from sources including clinic data, laboratory data, and data from over-the-counter drug sales.

Some research on devices to detect the existence of a threat:
  • Tiny electronic chips that would contain living nerve cells to warn of the presence of bacterial toxins (identification of broad range toxins)
  • Fiber-optic tubes lined with antibodies coupled to light-emitting molecules (identification of specific pathogens, such as anthrax, botulinum, ricin)
New research shows that ultraviolet avalanche photodiodes offer the high gain, reliability and robustness needed to detect anthrax and other bioterrorism agents in the air.

Current Methods of Biothreat Agent Detection

Detection and identification of biothreat agents include biosensing strategies based upon molecular/microbiological sensing technologies.This includes the use of antibodies, genomic analysis, biochemical testing, and other cellular based responses and recognition interactions.The primary identification mechanisms to identify various biothreat agents in the clinical health care environment include performing a combination of various molecular/microbiological based platforms.This includes mass spectrometry (MS), antibody-based immunoassays (IA), microbiological culturing (MB), and bioassay such as Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) to look for presence of specific genes (BA) . For example, identification of bacterial organisms such as Bacillus anthracis and Yersinia pestis include the IA/MB/BA method. Identification of viruses, such as smallpox and hemorrhagic fever viruses, include the IA/BA method . Issues encountered by these biosensing platforms include factors such as the differing physiochemical/structural properties of pathogens, the presence of different materials and matrices, differing pathology and etiology and the associated need to isolate, extract, purify and prepare samples for testing . These detection platforms must also be very sensitive, specific, and capable of detecting even minute concentrations of agents. However, false-positives are common in such platforms.

Recommended Competencies for Health Care First Responders

The recommended competencies for health care first responders includes being familiar with the clinical features of illnesses caused by potential bioterrorism agents along with the clinical patterns seen when intentional outbreaks are caused; knowledge of the medical countermeasures available to treat confirmed cases, prophylactics for suspected cases, and any available vaccines to prevent future cases; know how to report suspicions immediately (i.e., alerting local law enforcement agencies; anticipate how patients with special needs such as children and the elderly will receive medical care during a biological emergency; and know how to institute infection control triage procedures for patients presenting with respiratory symptoms and fever or rash.

BIOTERRORISM TALK IN MEDIA 

Bill Gates has warned that bioterrorism could kill more people than nuclear war.
In February 2018, a CNN employee discovered on an airplane a “sensitive, top-secret document in the seatback pouch explaining how the Department of Homeland Security would respond to a bioterrorism attack at the Super Bowl.”
 
2017 U.S. budget proposal affecting bioterrorism programs

President Donald Trump promoted his first budget around keeping America safe. However, one aspect of defense would receive less money: "protecting the nation from deadly pathogens, man-made or natural," according to the New York Times. Agencies tasked with biosecurity get a decrease in funding under the Administration's budget proposal.
For example:

  •   The Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response would be cut by $136 million, or 9.7percent. The office tracks outbreaks of disease.
“The next weapon of mass destruction may not be a bomb," Lawrence O. Gostin, the director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights, told the New York Times. “It may be a tiny pathogen that you can’t see, smell or taste, and by the time we discover it, it’ll be too late”.


 References : Wikipedia and others
                      

                                                                                                                                        Written By :
                                                                                                                                        Dhruv Valand
                                                                                                                                         (D4ever)


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