AMBO UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES

PUBLIC HEALTH MICROBIOLOGY ASSIGMENT TO

DEPARTMENT OF MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENCES

Title: BIOTERRORISM

BY: OBSA EJETA (BSc, MSc CANDIDATE)

08/10/2021 Prepared by Obs E. 1
OUTLINE
 Introduction
 Historical Background
 Common Feature Biological Agents
 Burden of Bioterrorism
 How to Control
 Distinguishing Bioterrorism
 Public Health Preparedness to Defense Bioterrorism
 public Health Microbiology and Bioterrorism
 Challenges and Perspective
 Conclusion
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Introduction
Definition-Bioterrorism is the deliberate or threatened use of
biological agents; viruses, bacteria, toxins or other agents to cause
illness or death in people, animals, or plants(Pei, Neo and Tan,
2017).
 Biocrime implies the use of a biological agent to kill or make ill a
single individual or small group of individuals
 Biological defense “includes the established methods, plans and
procedures and implemented measures of defense against
biological attacks(Pal et al., 2017).

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 The use of biological agents (Bio-weapons) to cause harm or
death is not a new concept.
 The primary goals of any kind of terrorism are to cause chaos and
fear and to undermine and destroy economic progress and
stability(Pal et al., 2017). , 2014; Goel, 2015).
 The current definition of terrorism emphasizes that its main
objective is to threaten and terrorize large groups of humans,
governments, armies, or society as a whole.(Barras and Greub,
2014; Goel, 2015)

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 Historical Background
 The use of biological agents (Bio-weapons) to cause harm or
death is not a new concept. It has been seen throughout the history
of mankind.
 The use of biological weapons has been reported as early as the
sixth century B.C (MacIntyre et al., 2006).
 1346-Mongols hurl bodies of plague victims over the walls of the
besieged city of Kaffa (Crimea).
 14th century BC -The Hittites send rams infected with tularaemia
to their enemies(Erenler, Güzel and Baydin, 2018; Funk, 2018).

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 1495-Spanish mix wine with blood of leprosy patients to sell to
their French foes, Naples (Italy).
 1650-Polish army fires saliva from rabid dogs towards their
enemies.
 1710-Russian army catapult plague cadavers over the Swedish
troops in Reval (Estonia) (Funk, 2018).
 1763-British officers distribute blankets from smallpox hospital to
Native Americans.
 1863-Confederates sell clothing from yellow fever and smallpox
patients to Union troops during the American Civil War(Barras
and Greub, 2014; Goel, 2015).
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 In June 1993, a religious Japanese terrorist sect Aum Shinrikyo
released anthrax on five trains of the Tokyo metro system.
 In October 2001, letters containing powdered anthrax were sent
through the US Postal Service. The attack caused 22 cases of
illness, 5 cases of death, and widespread fear.
 The study of the National Consortium for the Study of
Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism lists 74 separate
incidents involving biological agents during 1990–
2011(Martinez and Rose, 2018) .

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Common Feature of Biological Agents
Characteristics that make a specific pathogen a high-risk
for bioterrorism include the following:
 Low infective dose (e.g Francisella tularensis )
 Ability to be aerosolized( ideal particle size is 1–5 μm)
 High contagiousness, and are stable under variable of
environmental conditions.
 Extremely toxic & highly infectious
 Creates difficulty in medical response and easy to
grow(Gori and Tomar, 2020).
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 Biological agents used as biological weapons in bioterrorist
activities are classified by the Center for Disease Control in the
United States into three categories according to their risk as :
 Category A : It require highest priority, because
 easily disseminated or transmitted person-to-person;
 high mortality, with major public health impact;
 might cause public panic and social disruption; and
 require special action for public health preparedness.
e.g Bacillus anthracis. Clostridium botulinum toxin ,Yersinia
pestis.Variola major,Francisella tularensis,Filoviruses ,and
Arenaviruses (Kwon et al., 2018).
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 Category B: These agents are moderately easy to disseminate
and have low mortality rates.
 enhanced disease surveillance
 includes pathogens that are food-or water-borne.

 require specific enhancements of CDC’s diagnostic

capacity
e.g Clostridium perfringens,Salmonella spp,Burkholderia mallei,
Chlamydia psittaci,Coxiella burnetiid and Ricinus communis
etc(Naeem, Sohail and Iftikhar, 2019).
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 Category C: These 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.
 requires ongoing research to improve disease detection,
diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. E.g Nipah virus,
yellow fever, and multidrug-resistant
tuberculosis(Naeem, Sohail and Iftikhar, 2019).
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 Burden of Bioterrorism
 Bioterrorism is probably the most international challenges among
Chemical, Radiological, and Nuclear threats(Pei, Neo and Tan,
2017).
 Because it has long-term devastating impact on the
environment due to It has been inhabitable for a very long
term in the ecosystem.
 Why biological weapons are very attractive to terrorists? because,
 difficult to detect, cost effective,
 easy to spread , easy to use,invisible, silent, odorless,
tasteless, (Funk, 2018).
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 The main effects of bioterrorism are;
 diseases that often lead to death,
 contamination of water, food and soil
 Social Impact
 cause fear among the public,
 Psychological disruption and political instability
 economic losses(animals and plants)
 loss of faith in state authorities(Janik et al., 2019).
 According to the study shows between 2001 and 2012, the
federal government of the USA spent $60 billion on biodefence
efforts, (Wurtz, Grobusch and Raoult, 2014).
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How to Control Bioterrorism
 Identifying routes of exposure of biological weapons
 Identifying types of bioterrorism; Bioterrorism event is either
overt or covert in nature.
 Overt bioterrorism sample processed by public health laboratories
 A covert attack is most disturbing because the event itself might
be completely unnoticed until numerous victims fell
ill(Radovanović Nenadić and Teodorović, 2020) .

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 The Key indicators of a possible act of bioterrorism in raising
suspicion follow:
 Disease (or strain) not endemic
 Atypical clinical presentation and Number of cases
 The case distribution limited to localized or geographical areas
or temporally inconsistent.
 Increased rates of morbidity and mortality relative to the
number of personnel at risk
 Absence of a competent natural vector in the area of the
outbreak for those biological agents that are vector-borne in
nature. (Epstein, 2012; Gori
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and Tomar, 2020).
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 Most of the time it is very difficult for historians and
microbiologists to differentiate natural epidemics from alleged
biological attacks, because:
• Little information is available for times before the
development of modern microbiology
• Truth may be manipulated for political reasons, especially for
a hot topic such as a biological attack and
• The passage of time may also have distorted the reality of the
past(Barras and Greub, 2014; Goel, 2015).

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Public Health Preparedness
 Public-health preparedness is based on the fact that the initial
recognition of bioterrorism will be at the local and state level.
The main goal of public health preparedness to defense bioterrorism
 Provide laboratory support and expertisefor
response/investigation of all microbiological agent outbreaks
 Develop capacity to respond quickly and accurately to new
agents of disease
 Bring constant improvement on the local, regional, national,
and international levels Laboratory response network. (Murthy
et al., 2017).
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 Also involves all the safety concern organizing
• to give active laboratory response network
• to facilitate first responders contain the public health
emergency.
 Concerning to emergency preparedness, the potentially
susceptible population must be estimated, and a national
vaccination policy should be developed if possible.
 Also educating community health care workers(Nishiyama et al.,
2015; Rose et al., 2017).

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The role of public Health Microbiology in the
control of Bioterrorism
• Public health laboratories lead in event recognition,
verification, and early response for faster intervention.
• An early accurate diagnosis is the key to manage casualties of
biological warfare.
• Provide antimicrobial patterns and recommend safety
precautions during transmission of outbreaks.
• Transmission of relevant data to designated local, state, and
national agencies responsible for disease prevention,
surveillance,andcontrol (Murthy et al., 2017).
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 The mission of the LRN is
• To maintain an integrated national and international network of
laboratories that are fully equipped
• To respond quickly to acts of biological terrorism,
emerging infectious diseases, and other public health threats.

Fig 1 CDC Laboratory Response Network (LRN): partners in preparedness.

(Adapted from the CDC [http://www.bt.cdc.gov/lrn/pdf/(Murthy et al., 2017;
Radovanović Nenadić and Teodorović, 2020).
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Challenges and Future perspective
 The challenging is obtaining epidemiology of agents of
bioterrorism, because some research has been conducted by
military or state organizations, with only a small percentage of
their activities being publically reported
 it can be difficult to distinguish between natural and intentional
events.
 Genetic modification and other modern biotechnology
procedures can create a new generation of bioterror weapons.

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 Recently, promising optical biosensors were proposed as a tool
for the determination of biological warfare agents using advanced
nanotechnologies.
Conclusion
 Bioterrorism has become a serious and international threat in
the contemporary world.
 The main effects of bioterrorism are diseases that often lead
to death, contamination of water, food and soil.
 Today's world is deeply intertwined politically, economically,
culturally and socially

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 To early identify biological agents developing advanced public
health microbiology laboratory. Adopting a legal solution to
counter bioterrorist acts.
 Finally, educating people and informing them to identify
bioterrorist signs and symptoms as soon as possible is another
measure.

THANK YOU!

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