Bioterrorism Essay

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Bioterrorism is terrorism involving the deliberate release of biological agents to cause illness or death in people, animals, or plants. These agents are bacteria, viruses, and toxins, and may be in a naturally occurring or a human-modified form. These agents can be altered by the terrorist to increase their ability to cause harm, to make them resistant to any medicines, or to increase their ability to be spread around in the environment faster. Biological agents can be spread through the air, water, or in food. Terrorists would choose to use biological agents because they are extremely difficult to detect and do not cause illness for several hours to several days. Some bioterrorism agents, like the smallpox virus, can be spread from person …show more content…

They can be easily spread or transmitted from person to person, they result in high death rates and have the potential for major public health impact, they could cause extreme concern and social disruption, and they require special action for public health preparedness. Some examples of category A agents are Anthrax, Smallpox and the Bubonic plague.
Category B agents can be moderately easy to spread They result in moderate illness rates and low death rates and require specific enhancements of CDC's laboratory capacity and enhanced disease monitoring. Some examples include typhus, Food safety threats such as salmonella and e-coli, and Water supply threats.
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. Category C includes the Nipah virus, H1N1 and HIV/AIDS (Bioterrorism Agent Categories)
Biodefense uses medical measures to protect people against bioterrorism. This includes medicines and vaccinations. It also includes medical research and preparations to defend against bioterrorist attacks. It can prove to be difficult to defend against an airborne attack with people taking trains and having so many crowded cities and places in

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