Bioterrorism Threats - Essay Example

'Bioterrorism Threats' is a great example of a paper on social and family issues. 
According to Bellenir, there are numerous biochemical compounds that have been released to harm or kill the population and many governments have adopted technology in an attempt to protect civilians from such hazards. Anthrax, a biochemical has been employed in the past by terrorists, and as a result, governments across the globe, have adopted mechanisms to prevent its use as a terrorism tool (Bellenir, 2004).

Surveillance methods used

In the US, the government has adopted modern electronic surveillance systems to increase the chances of early detection of biochemical terrorism cases and others. The main surveillance system employed nowadays is syndromic surveillance systems. It has previously been employed to detect early outbreaks, monitor trends, follow and manage the spread, size and speed of the outbreaks. The syndromic surveillance systems use the prevalent health information in real-time to provide a quick analysis and then transmit the feedback to the relevant health and police authorities.

Espejo argues that there are many syndromic surveillance systems that have been instituted to detect potential biochemical terrorist threats and they all have a common constituent. They all possess an indicator of disease that is non-specific in nature. Additionally, the indicator is found in close to real-time, for a defined population. Simply, it is a way of accounting events on a day to day basis by using a detection algorithm mechanism to investigate the threat and a set baseline for the appropriate response (Espejo, 2013).

Basic Response Functions of Government

Following the 9/11 attacks, the government sought to address the issue of disaster management and preparedness across the three levels of government-county, state and federal. At the local level, there are local emergency responders who are usually the first on the scene of a disaster such as an anthrax attack.

At this level, there is a health body affiliated with the CDC that is tasked with containing the area and the population, to prevent further spread and casualties related to the epidemic. The local authorities, the sheriff’s department, are tasked with crowd control and ensuring that the population follows the procedures availed to it by the CDC to prevent an outbreak. At the state level, there are state emergency responders who help the local authorities in prevention, detection, management of any disaster through quarantine.

Ntara suggests that constant communication coupled with inter-jurisdictional duties between the health authorities and the police departments is very important. At the federal level, there are federal emergency agencies on call when the outbreak is widespread. All the government bodies co-operate through the local emergency planning committees, the state emergency response commissions, the tribal emergency response commissions and the state emergency response commissions (Ntara, 2010).

Adequacy of Existing Surveillance Systems

Hebda et al., imply that, at the moment, there are numerous surveillance systems being used and created. One of them is ESSENCE, a computerized syndromic surveillance system that originally relied on prevalent health care information systems from Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC. Since it is not possible to predict the exact location and time of a bioterrorist attack, the drop-in terrorism surveillance mechanisms employed to monitor certain events and places like the Super Bowl, have their own limitations (Hebda at al., 2005).

There is mounting pressure on the CDC and the relevant health bodies, to implement further detection and security measures. It has been suggested that there is a need for a complete bioterrorism surveillance mechanism that incorporates the human resources, information management systems, and laboratory services. The mechanism could also adopt legal and socially acceptable methods that allow characterization and early detection of threats.