POSTED AT 9:58 AM EST Tuesday, October 30

Serious anthrax attack could kill thousands, study says

By OLIVER MOORE Globe and Mail Update

A serious anthrax attack on a Canadian suburb could kill almost one in three residents unless stockpiles of medication and detailed emergency response plans were ready, a study published Tuesday by the Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases (CJID) indicates.

The mortality rate following an attack using botulism, it said, could run as high as 30 per cent.

See also: NY hospital worker may have inhaled anthrax

Rapid response is the key to fighting a serious bioterrorist attack, the study concludes. Mortality following an aerosolized anthrax attack could be cut by 90 per cent if an antibiotic regime could be implemented the day of the attack.

"In the absence of an immunized population and [assuming] a very limited supply of vaccine," write Ronald St. John, Brian Finlay and Curtis Blair, "anthrax morbidity and mortality prevention would be highly dependent on the availability of large supplies of ... antibiotics."

Implementation of a treatment program the second or third day following an attack would result in a much higher mortality rate. "No program at all," the study concludes, "results in astronomical losses."

The study also found that the economic costs associated with an anthrax attack on a population of 100,000 could run as high as $6.5-billion, and as high as $8.6-billion for a botulism attack.

The study examined separately the results of a nonmilitary attack on the suburb of a major city that exposed 100,000 people to either anthrax or botulism. Assuming optimal weather conditions, and two hours of exposure, one-half of the target population would receive an infectious dose of anthrax spores, the authors conclude.

Such an attack could theoretically cause 32,875 deaths and force 332,500 person-hospital days.

Fear of anthrax has climbed steadily higher in the United States since the first bioterrorist attack surfaced in Florida several weeks ago. Although only three people have died from the letter-borne bacterium, anxiety has provoked hundreds of hoaxes and false alarms, widespread security alerts, massive purchases of antibiotics and temporary evacuations of numerous facilities in Washington.

Although a 1970 World Health Organization report — now under revision — predicted that a deliberate attack on an urban centre using 50 kilograms of anthrax could result in tens to hundreds of thousands of deaths, botulism has the power to cause an even greater death toll. The CJID-published study points out that as little as one gram of aerosolized botulism toxin could, under certain conditions, kill at least 1.5 million people.

The study found that a botulism attack under similar conditions to the hypothetical anthrax attack could, in the absence of rapid emergency response, cause 30,000 deaths and result in 4,275,000 hospital days.

Rem Gaade, a Toronto-area terrorism response specialist, said before last month's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that he does most of his teaching in the United States because of a belief in Canada that terrorists would not target this country.

"We've stuck our head in the sand and said, 'This doesn't happen in Canada,'" he said last spring. "Many other countries have recognized that it's a problem and done something about it. We're grossly underprepared."

Mr. Gaade said that if Canada were hit by a chemical or biological weapon, "there would be unnecessary casualties. People sick and people dead. The only cure for it is for people to realize this is not an American problem. This is a global problem."

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001

Answers

I hope they get on the ball up there and aren't expecting us to save their asses.

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001