October 10, 2001	Wednesday	Rajab 22, 1422

WASHINGTON, Oct 9: US lawmakers and experts on Tuesday warned that the country is woefully unprepared to cope with a full-scale biological or chemical terrorist attack.

Public health workers are in desperate need of training, hospitals are understaffed and under-equipped, food security needs to be improved, and stockpiles of vaccines and antibiotics are frighteningly low, they said.

“Are we fully prepared to deal with such a bio-terrorist effect? The answer now is no,” said Senator Max Cleland.

Exercises simulating such an attack, he said, “dramatically illustrate our response today is woefully inadequate.”

Fears of a possible bio-terrorist or chemical attack spread through the country after September’s massive airborne suicide attacks and rose further as federal investigators look into a rare outbreak of anthrax in Florida.

Government officials have repeatedly warned that more terrorist attacks against the United States were 100 per cent likely, particularly after the US-led coalition retaliated for the September 11 strikes.

“Biological weapons have been characterized as the poor man’s nuclear weapon and they pose a greater risk to our country than ever before,” stated Senator Evan Bayh at a public health subcommittee hearing.

The senators called for emergency funding to ensure a comprehensive, coordinated response to any such attack, emphasizing the need to help and train those who would be on the front-lines: state and local public health staff, laboratories, hospitals, pharmacies and the intelligence community.

“A wide-scale bio-terrorist attack would create mass panic and overwhelm the public health system in just a few days,” warned Mohammad Akhter, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Akhter called for the rapid development of a sensitive surveillance system to collect and distribute data, beefing up public health staff and vaccine stockpiles to deal with a major breakout of a disease such as the plague, anthrax or smallpox.

Donald Henderson, recently appointed to head the Health and Human Services Department’s bio-terrorism panel, pointed to the success of work done in Florida where health officials identified an outbreak of anthrax.

One man has died and another is under observation having tested positive for the bacterium. Federal investigators have sealed the building where the victim was employed and begun testing other employees, while looking into the possibility that this was not a criminal one.

He also warned that any bio-terrorist strike would be completely different from the events of September 11.

“It will likely be a covert attack. We would know we had been attacked only when people began appearing in emergency rooms.”

“We need to (be able to) quickly recognize (an outbreak) and deliver effective medical care, possibly on a massive scale.”

“If we fail,” concluded Akhter, “I fear history will judge all of us negligent.” —AFP