As bioterrorism becomes more of a threat in the United States, city and state governments need to have a better system to detect and prevent threats and outbreaks of deadly diseases. Although doctors are on alert for anthrax - three weeks into the outbreak - any new germ may slip past unnoticed.
Better surveillance is essential to determine whether patients have anything, ranging from anthrax to the flu.
Doctors are trained to look for the obvious, and this is not always beneficial. Two days after the first Washington, D.C. postal worker checked into the hospital, another co-worker checked into a Maryland hospital with similar symptoms and subsequently released, over indications that he had nothing more than stomach flu. He returned a day later, and died of inhaled anthrax.
Presently, new technology has been set up at a facility in Ohio, and will spread to another in Washington next month, which will irradiate mail by use of an electron-beam device designed to kill any bacteria. Although many talk about these devices being put into use in other places around the country, their widespread use is simply not feasible.
The new technology is a nice measure toward prevention, but the current devices are too expensive - the U.S. Postal Service signed a $40 million contract for eight machines - and can’t be put into use at every postal station in the country.
And perhaps, they’re a little alarmist as well. While places like New York City and Washington, D.C. might be potential targets, little backwater towns are much less likely to receive any kind of bioterrorism attack.
The key lies in a national medical awareness and alert, especially in possible bioterrorism hotspots. Hospitals and their staff need to be aware of what to look for, and to be willing to expect the worst.
And medical technicians need to be on the same page with what other practitioners are looking for around the country. There are uncounted benefits to be able to tell doctors that there is a certain surge of a particular illness - and to look for trends in particular symptoms, prescriptions and ambulance calls.
Regardless of the method, something needs to be done to ensure the risk Americans run of becoming victims of bioterrorism is minimized, or even better - neutralized. Congress is preparing legislation to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to improve national readiness against bioterrorism.
The gaps in the system need to be filled. America needs a better way of monitoring potential outbreaks of lethal diseases before something even more deadly arrives on the scene.
For everyone’s sake, it’s better to be overly cautious than to not be careful enough.
