Diesease And Terrorism In A Connected World

A complacent America, growing ever less concerned about the threat of pandemic bird flu, was startled last week by the sudden appearance of a major epidemic of swine flu in neighboring Mexico. Cases were soon reported from New York, California, Texas and Ohio, as well as France, New Zealand, Canada and Britain. So far, the apprehension and confusion about what to expect resembles the early days of the anthrax attacks of 2001, when a fine powder of weaponized anthrax bacteria showed up in the U.S. mail. Then, as now, health authorities were taken completely by surprise, and the public panicked out of all proportion to the actual threat.

The similarities between the flu and biological terrorism are not coincidental. In recent years the world has changed in ways that have made the threats of natural and man-made epidemics more and more alike. As we deal with the increasing prospects of a bioterrorist attack, we are also struggling with the challenge of emerging diseases: AIDS, pandemic strains of influenza and the “mad-cow disease” that terrified Britain only a decade ago. The way these threats unfold—and the responses they call for—are becoming ever more similar.

The central driver is the increasingly interconnected world we live in.

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Bio-terrorism – Al-Qaida and the Plague

In the not too distant past, this story would have been front page news.

In the middle of the massive coverage of U.S. President Barack Obama’s inauguration, a rather troublesome news story emerged. Unfortunately, it failed to get the coverage it deserves. If confirmed, it deserves the full attention of the Obama administration: the story has to do with bio-terrorism. Read more

Terrorists Could Use Insect-based Biological Terror Weapon

Terrorists would find it “relatively easy” to launch a devastating attack using swarms of insects to spread a deadly disease, an academic has warned.

Jeffrey Lockwood, professor of entomology at Wyoming University and author of Six-legged Soldiers: Using Insects as Weapons of War, said such Rift Valley Fever or other diseases could be transported into a country by a terrorist with a suitcase.

Lockwood said, “I think a small terrorist cell could very easily develop an insect-based weapon.”

He said it would “probably be much easier” than developing a nuclear or chemical weapon, arguing: “The raw material is in the back yard.”

He continued: “It would be a relatively easy and simple process.

“A few hundred dollars and a plane ticket and you could have a pretty good stab at it.”

Governments, he advised, needed to have robust “pest management infrastructure that’s able to absorb and respond to an introduction” of infected insects, he said.

Trying to stop everything coming in at the border would not work, he said.

Rift Valley Fever is an east African disease which “can cause severe disease in both animals and humans, leading to high rates of disease and death” according to the World Health Organisation.

However, WHO says that “the vast majority of human infections result from direct or indirect contact with the blood or organs of infected animals.”

Source – Telegraph.