[silk] Web-based tracking system for biological terrorism

["Udhay Shankar N" <udhay@xxxxxxxxx>]

In the context of the current discussion, I found this item particularly 
interesting...

Udhay

http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500476037-500731129-
504168396-0,00.html
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Web-based tracking system watched for biological terrorism at Democratic 
convention 

By ERIN McCLAM, Associated Press 

ATLANTA (April 24, 2001 8:22 a.m. EDT) - As Democrats met in Los Angeles 
last summer to nominate Al Gore for president, health officials were 
quietly using a new, Web-based tracking system to watch for biological 
terrorism. 

The network linked 11 hospital emergency rooms, an airport and federal 
health officials, who checked a secure Internet site as often as every hour 
to detect signs of bacteria circulated to spread deadly disease. 

Web tracking allowed specialists to look for patterns in symptoms during 
the convention rather than waiting for doctors' diagnoses. Had 
bioterrorists struck, the system would have given the city a critical head 
start in fighting back. 

Details of the network were revealed Monday at a U.S. Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention conference in Atlanta. 

"There may only be a short window of opportunity to provide treatment" 
during bioterrorist attacks at high-profile events like political 
conventions and sports championships, said Elizabeth Bancroft, a CDC 
epidemiologist in Los Angeles County. 

For 16 days sandwiching the convention Aug. 14-17, emergency rooms and an 
airport clinic were checked for seven types of alarming symptoms - 
including rashes with fever, meningitis and unexplained death. 

Hospitals fed the symptom reports to the secure Web site, and CDC and 
county health officials crunched the numbers at least every four hours - 
hourly at peak times. 

The system, based on a smaller model used at the 1999 World Trade 
Organization meeting in Seattle, needs to be modified, with fine-tuned 
detection of a broader range of bioterrorist attacks. 

"We need to be able to confront the unexpected - whether that be the 
influenza epidemic, West Nile virus in the Northeast or the threat of 
bioterrorism," said James Hughes of the CDC's National Center for 
Infectious Diseases. 

Still, the project had its critics at the conference Monday. One pointed 
out the Web-based surveillance ignored toxic chemical agents. Another 
wondered about the cost-effectiveness of the project. No cost estimate was 
figured for the project, Bancroft said. 

"No matter what the cost, if something had happened it would have been 
worth every penny," she said. "You never know."