Flu Carries Lessons for Bioterror Fight

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Apr 30, 2009 1:11 PM CDT

(Newser) – The H1N1 flu outbreak spotlights a public-health infrastructure ill suited to respond to a pandemic or its close cousin, a bioterror attack, D.A. Henderson writes for Newsweek. We must “sharpen our health-care response. Rapid diagnosis and response are critical,” he writes. The “interconnected world we live in” means a little-known disease “could rapidly become the hemorrhagic epidemic of Boston or Bordeaux.”

Authorities expected an Asian flu epidemic. “Yet it appeared in Mexico while we weren't looking,” Henderson writes, and that is unacceptable. The current panic calls to mind the 2001 anthrax attacks. Just five people died, “but widespread fear of almost any powder led to the evacuation of hundreds of office complexes.” It's time to “strengthen emergency plans,” Henderson writes. “Other, even less pleasant surprises are in our future.”

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A woman prays during a mass held outdoors at the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City. (AP Photo)

People wearing protective face masks as a precaution against swine flu in front of the image of the Virgin of Guadaloupe at the Basilica of Guadaloupe in Mexico City. (AP Photo)

An Egyptian butcher controls a pig as a medical team member examine it at a slaughter house in Cairo. (AP Photo)

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We need to foster a greatly expanded international network of epidemiologists and laboratory scientists who continually investigate new outbreaks and look for better methods to diagnosis and treat diseases, wherever they might be occurring. -

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