Bioterrorism In The 21st Century

Through examination of academic journals, it is clear that bioterrorism is a real threat as the United States enters the 21st century. History has exhibited the silent nature of such attacks and the impairments they can have on large populations. Bioterrorism has occurred since ancient times. In the 14th century, the Tartars combined their normal weapons with biological agents by using catapults to launch corpses of plague victims into Kaffa, sparking another wave of the Bubonic plague (Parker, 2013). The fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990’s along with other political events resulted in vast amounts of bio-agents vanishing and falling into the wrong hands. Adversaries claim it is too difficult and requires numerous resources to conduct a

Bioterrorism readiness and public health education for medical professionals together must to be the main concern. By combining the two both can be given the time and attention they need for our health care professionals to be properly trained and adequately prepared for a variety of health threats (Egan, 2005). The bioterrorism response education program (BR program) was developed through the collaborative efforts of public health nursing administration and faculty at a university school of nursing. The program was designed to meet the unique needs of public health registered nurses and other personnel for timely training in bioterrorism recognition and response (Baldwin, LaMantia, & Proziack, 2005). The educational program was developed during the summer of 2002 at a time when bioterrorism response was a relatively new concept to health care personnel. Schools of nursing are in a place to prepare future nurses by combining bioterrorism education into the undergraduate curricula. While current nursing texts do not address bioterrorism in a comprehensive way, there are other resources readily available to nursing faculty (Steed, Howe, Pruitt, & Sherrill, 2004). Currently, teaching bioterrorism as a section of community health nursing appears to be an proper placement of the subject matter in the

This threat must be considered as inevitable because it is challenging to detect and has the prospective to wipe out entire cities. Certain nations, specifically Iraq, have experimented with these destructive weapons. Although international conventions prohibit the use of biological agents for offensive purposes, it is known that many terrorist groups continue their research about the possible use of biological agents as bioweapons (Cenciarelli, 2013). The concerns related to biological agents are aroused, as well as the effects in terms of victims, both from the objective difficulties in the detection of a potential attack. A release of biological agents is difficult to detect with current technology, especially when it comes to a standoff revelation compared to point detection. Biological agents have a unique feature when compared to other non-conventional weapons (chemical or radiological); with the exception of toxins, they are able to multiply in the host and in turn be transmitted to other individuals (Cenciarelli, 2013). Hence, immediate identification of a biological attack is essential, in order to take appropriate containment measures to contain further dissemination. Therefore, there is a clear need to develop new technologies to detect biological agents from long-range, in order to take immediate action in the event of both intentional and unintentional