BioTerrorism Analysis: Weaponsized Infectious Disease and Emerging Disease

Various | 3-17-03 | Bones McCoy

[Lessismore]

It is not clear whether an infectious agent has to be "weaponized" in the high-tech, mass warfare, sense. Wouldn't it be effective to spread an agent more manually by direct application to salad bars? How about having someone in a coat check room at a restaurant apply the material to buttons, zipper pulls and collars? Any place where people leave garments unattended or in the care of persons they don't know is a vulnerability?

[maestro]

Your Pic Post# 10)...... I can't 'read' the first word on the 2nd and 3rd letters?

'T________ is next'

?...what is the word?

Thanks.

[The Great Satan]

It says, "THIS IS NEXT."

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

IMO, if anyone wanted to truly damage an enemy long term, they would go after it's agriculture. Something which is best accomplished by biological agents.

i believe that you are quite correct. Look at what Hoof and Mouth disease did in Britian and Ulster a couple of years ago.

It would be simple to spread in the US. Crop duster airplains would do quite well. Realise that most of the grain in this country actually goes to feed meat, poultry, and dairy animals, a food crisis of apocalyptic proportions could easily be precipitated. The terror is that it could not be detected until it was far too late, and a great many animals and crops would have to be destroyed. Decontaminating from Hoof and Mouth under natural transmission is a difficult and involved process. What would a deliberate attack involve in terms of decontamination resources?

So, just why were those Middle Eastern Islamics interested in crop dusters last year?

[bonesmccoy]

Your comments appreciated.

In answer to my posited question on rate of spread of disease, I'd like to submit this analysis.

Assuming the following:
There is a rate of potential contagion defined by the number of people the index case meets in a set amount of time.

Pc = people contacted per unit time
Pnc = people never contacting agent

Each agent has a rate of "successful" infection, where a given susceptible person is exposed to the germ and becomes symptomatic.

Ki = ratio of people infected over total people contacted per unit time.

Ki = Pi/Pc, where Pi = number of infected people

Let's assume the following:
A. a city of 20,000 people, where each person regularly interacts with 20 people per day.

B. 50% of the contacts per day are uncontacted and 50% are regularly contacted individuals.

C. The organism successfully infects 50% of the contacts and creates immunity in the remaining 50%.

D. Of those infected, 30% become symptomatic.

E. Illness has one week incubation period.


Here are the numbers:

Week One:
1 index case exposes 20 people per day (140 per week).
If 50% of all exposed people get infected, 140 contacts creates 70 infected individuals.

Week Two:
1 index case gets ill and is isolated at home/hospital (no longer spreading disease)
70 infected cases contact 20 people per day (infecting 4900 people over the week).

Week Three:
If 30% of infected cases become very ill, 21 cases (who became ill in week one) will fall critically ill (and thus, be removed from spreading disease). This means that roughly 4950 people are still spreading disease.

Week Four:
As the disease is identified in week three, the 21 index cases will alert national health authorities regarding the spread of disease. However, the undiagnosed infected people will still be spreading disease (and that's 4950 people). If they are continuing in their regular activities (and reach 140 new individuals per week), they will infect 346430 people by weeks end.

If the 30% of the people who got infected in week two become ill in Week Three, over 1400 patients will need admission to the hospital in that area.

It is unlikely that hospital capacity can handle that number of cases.

This would necessitate a national emergency with mobilization of national guard capability. Since national guard capabilities may be stretched thin if foreign threats require deployment, civilian capacity will need to handle one thousand cases in one week without national guard intervention.

Perhaps this is the starting point of analysis for civilian medical response capabilities.

[bonesmccoy]

Dear First_Salute,

I absolutely and totally agree.

The lack of county/municipal priority for this issue is dangerous. We are dealing with a foreign threat which can muster enough capability to eliminate medium and small towns in America.

WTC was roughly the population of a small town.

[Brad’s Gramma]

Indexing. Thanks for starting this, bones.

[bonesmccoy]

GOPJ,
These illnesses begin in China because the Chinese have the habit of interacting with ducks (no joke). The cities have ducks hanging from racks. In addition, the sanitation may be a factor.

Moreover, the Chinese government (communists) do not have the economy to properly prioritize healthcare for their citizens. Thus, you have a governmental run hospital with four dozen staff infected. One wonders how many mechanical ventilators the city hospitals have in their area.

[bonesmccoy]

I can tell you that we are sitting ducks. This area has a public health authority that believes that the President is lying.

It is enough to make me post here in a plea for assistance on the eve of war.

I can not guarantee the survival of my town in the event of BT attack.

[carpio]

Book marking Bump

[bonesmccoy]

that's correct.
Please see posting on spread of disease (rate suggests that the nation needs rapid response lab capabilities to diagnose disease entity specifically within three days).

[Psycho_Runner]

I think the economic repercussions will be far greater than what is the reality. Part of the economic chaos will be based on ignorance more than anything else. Most people don't understand that CBR is divided essentially into 2 categories, persitent and non persistent. Why is this so important? Lets look at two examples, Anthrax and Nerve Agent. Anthrax is persistent and decontamination is expensive, but the reality is we have antibiotics and decontamination process to counter the deadly effects.
Nerve agent on the other hand is non persistent, that is, its potency quickly degenerates upon dispersion. The problem with nerve agent is twofold, it acts quick and hard to detect. Wonder why the Marines have pigeons nearby?
One major factor to watch for on a CBR attack is the wind direction. The wind direction more so for Nerve Agents than Anthrax. The wind direction is serious if you are downwind from a cbr attack.

Regardless if the attack is chemical or biological, the result is the same, therefore the difference is the behavoir of the respective deadly warfare agent.

My humble wisdom comes from the Army Reserve training. (40 hours at Pine Bluff, 15 years ago) Though long ago I don't think there are any new chemicals.

[maestro]

There are exotic possiblities, but you don't need to worry about them, because no raghead nation has a corps of high-quality molecular biologists.

True,....but,....'raghead nations' (It takes a village) could be 'used' as testing sites.

:-(

[bonesmccoy]

The salad bar is notorious as a source of problems for public health authorities. That is why the salad bars in many areas have "sneeze guards".

The other point of concern is the fast food restaurant's drink dispensers. They have free refills in our area. I have noticed that people tend to drink from the cup without a straw. Then, they push the tab for dispensing of the drink with the lid of the cup (where they just had their lips). Essentially, they are spreading the germs from their mouths to the tab. The next person then hits the exact same tab with their cup, spreading germs from the tab to the next person.

Dropping agent into ice containers or drinking cup dispensers is as much a concern as a salad bar.

[bonesmccoy]

Sir,
thanks for serving our nation.
Regarding chemical vs. biological attack, I wanted to distinguish between the two agents. It is my opinion that chemical attack will be more recognizable than biological attack.

Chemical attack will cause casualties that civilian first responders will mobilize to ER/trauma centers.

The biological attack will not cause such response initially because the attack will be spreading without causing massive illness for some time. For this reason, we need to evaluate how to recognize such an attack.

[Paleo Conservative]

If the Iraqis want to spread hoof and mouth in the US, they'll succeed. It's unstopppable, and one guy couild easily do it.

I thought I read an article stating that there is a vaccine for hoof and mouth disease. Apparently the reason it is not used is that it is not possible to tell the difference between antibodies the animals make in response to the vaccine as opposed to the antibodies made in repsonse to exposure to hoof and mouth disease.

[bonesmccoy]

I just had the spine-chilling realization that France DOES have the capability to do this kind of research.

What if France has existing deals to send such technology to Iraq (in return for oil)?