Preparedness and Response to Bioterrorism
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Categories of weapons of mass destruction causing bioterrorism
The healthcare industry is most prepared to deal with different categories of weapons of mass effect. These categories are biological agents, chemicals agents, and nuclear agents. The following categories contain dangerous materials capable of causing great losses of life if introduced to human body system. Biological agents cause greater risks to public health. The first step in developing national preparedness and response to bioterrorism is identifying agents that pose greater threats to national security and public health. The main categories under of concern consists those that are highly transmittable from one person to another, those that cause high mortality, and those requiring special action from the nation and healthcare industry. These agents include Plague, Botulism, Anthrax, Tularemia, and Viral Hemorrhagic fever. On the other hand, weapons of mass destruction falling under chemical category produce primary chemical agents that are used as weapons. Moreover, chemical agents causes major mortality and morbidity, and require special action from the nation and public healthcare sector (McCoy and Sebring, 2001).
Nuclear devices also cause greater harms to lives and have faces more attention from the healthcare industry. Nuclear weapons create damage due to explosive power of the weapon and cause contamination to humans and other living things. Radiations produced by nuclear weapons contribute to many negative health effects calling upon the healthcare industry to properly prepare for such disasters. On the other hand, radioactive materials have the potential of causing dangerous health harms to people and their surroundings. Radioactive materials enter human tissues when exposed to the human body and cause major health problems such as chronic diseases.
The healthcare sector however puts less effort when it comes to disaster preparedness for some categories of weapons of mass destruction like pathogens and toxins, and non-conventional high-yield explosives. The health harms caused by these weapons of mass destruction are minimal and limited to small populations that come into contact with causative materials. In addition, harms caused by materials from these categories are easily mitigated by individuals without any professional assistance.
Major focus areas for preparedness and response to bioterrorism
Preparedness and response to bioterrorism and other outbreaks takes place using six main focus areas. The six focus areas are:
Preparedness and prevention
Detection and surveillance
Laboratory diagnosis and characterization
Response
Communication, and
Training
The above focus areas remain relevant today and play an essential role in disaster preparedness and response to bioterrorism. Firstly, the institutions United States has introduced disaster preparedness, and response causes to offer students the necessary knowledge on bioterrorism and other forms of terrorism. In addition, most healthcare facilities have disaster response units where people suspected to contain biological agents are tested and observed before allowed to interact with other people.
Preparedness and prevention: The government and the healthcare industry take actions to bioterrorism by developing activities such as response plans, implementation, and evaluating response programs. In addition, preparedness involves coordination of partners in disaster management and assessing current applied research and capacity (McCoy and Sebring, 2001).
Detection and surveillance: This focus area involves designing methodologies, procedures and tools that can easily identify and investigate unusual happenings such as disease outbreak, injuries, or syndromes that might be agents of bioterrorism (McCoy and Sebring, 2001).
Laboratory diagnosis and characterization: In this focus area a network of public health and clinical laboratories at local, state, and federal levels coordinate in testing different agents of bioterrorism. The main aim of this focus area is to promote rapid, accurate diagnosis and identification of potential chemical and biological threat agents (McCoy and Sebring, 2001).
Response: Center for Disease Control together with Public Health Laboratories established the National Laboratory Response Network that offer all laboratories access to all form of materials needed for diagnosis of chemical and biological agents. The response focus area aims at developing treatment and prophylaxis procedures for infected people. In addition, the process focuses on starting environmental determination measures for detecting primary agents of mass destruction (McCoy and Sebring, 2001).
Communication: Communication assists in relying information about any outbreak of presence of biological agents in various locations worldwide to the relevant authority. CDC aims at upgrading information technology in all regions of the country. The process promotes quick exchange of emergency information and data between public health, law enforcement, public safety personnel, and emergency response units across the country (McCoy and Sebring, 2001).
Training: Training ensures each department involved in disaster preparedness and control possesses the necessary skills when a disaster strikes. CDC came up with an initiative and developed National Bioterrorism Training Plan aimed at training medical personnel’s on how well to prepare for disasters (McCoy and Sebring, 2001).
Detection and surveillance forms the most important focus area among these six. This area requires a lot of expertise and application of modern technologies in detecting and determining possible sources of bioterrorism causative agents. Effective methodologies and tactics must be employed by healthcare experts and other government officials in order to ensure biological and chemical agents never find their way in the country. The least important focus area is on training. The government and department of health will be doing nothing training its staff to deal with bioterrorism if people lack awareness and detection facilities.
Impact of communication in disaster preparedness and response
Effective communication of any disaster helps in calming fears and suppressing rumors. Availability of effective communication models allows easier transfer of information and data from one location to another and helps promote disaster preparedness and control. When an outbreak of a certain deadly disease like Ebola occurs, people live with fear of contracting the disease. Communication between the emergency response units and disaster response and preparedness unit helps in identifying main areas where there is an outbreak reducing concerns of people in unaffected regions. In addition, upon the outbreak of a deadly disease people talk many rumors, and the only way to suppress them is through communication.
Training exercises helps in determining the level of preparedness for bioterrorism and chemical attacks whenever a disaster occurs. After the September 11 attack, the United States government engaged in numerous training exercises across the country. Leaders across the nation engaged in promoting training exercises that spanned for 13 days. Training exercises investigates many issues on disaster preparedness and response including the readiness of the nation to confront bioterrorist attacks, availability of planning and disaster response facilities.
Real-time training scenarios help in promoting nationwide disaster preparedness and prevention of bioterrorism. Lack of preparedness acted as the most common problem facing the U.S. government and its citizens upon conducting several training exercise programs. Proper preparation for disasters with the availability of all resources, tools, and equipments plays a major role in improving national security and healthcare outcomes. In addition, real-life training scenarios involving multiple agents improves public awareness by encouraging individuals to take care and teach others on various techniques to use in case a disaster strikes.
Application of Amtrak’s “Operation Rail Safe” program to healthcare industry
The Amtrak’s “Operation Rail Safe” program was established to ensure the U.S. railway security. The program occurs through the training exercise aimed at addressing the issue of security in U.S. railway sector. Law enforcement agencies conducted massive, multi-jurisdictional law enforcement practices to ensure people adhere to rule and regulation of U.S. railway. Additionally, the exercise promotes information sharing between different governments sectors on any issue affecting the national security especially in public transport. Implementing such a program in hospitals and medical centers would help minimize the number of deaths and injuries caused by lack of awareness and information on disaster preparedness and prevention. Bioterrorism has become a big concern to both the government and the healthcare industry because of many reported deaths caused by outbreak of biological agents or body contact with chemical agents. Operational Rail Safe integrates many stakeholders from the government including local, state, and federal agents who support the program (Wyllie, 2012). Likewise, the healthcare industry would implement the “Operational Health Safe” program that trains people on disaster preparedness and prevention in order to get rid of bioterrorism. Many stakeholders also should be involved in this program, for example, the government, institutions of higher learning, the public and healthcare officials.
The triage process
The triage process aims at identifying people who need immediate medical attention depending on the nature of illness or injury. Sarin agent is a deadly chemical that causes severe health problems to individuals once exposed to them. The best criteria to use to triage patients with potential exposure to nerve agent sarin are by observing physical signs. The most common signs of a person exposed to nerve agent sarin include watery eyes, running nose, eye pain, blurred vision, cough, chest tightness, excessive sweating, rapid breathing, diarrhea, headache, body weakness, slow or fast heart rate, confusion, and high blood pressure (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). Any patient in the emergency department showing a couple of these signs should receive immediate medical attention because they stand higher chances of losing life because of exposure to sarin agents. In order to identify patients with potential of nerve agent sarin exposure, the most recommended process is identifying the nature of an emergency. Those with body injuries caused by accidents should be taken to different departments dealing with accidents. On the other hand, patients with signs of convulsions, paralyzis, respiratory failure and loss of consciousness should be taken for a checkup and test for nerve agent sarin.
Use of an ICS in the hospital
Hospital Incidence Command System (ICS) plays a critical role in dealing with a bioterrorism attack. ICS facilitates training of hospital staff in order to provide them with knowledge on how to prepare and respond to disasters. Bioterrorism is the most dangerous form of disaster capable of sweeping the entire community of country, availability of medical providers with ICS training helps in mitigating bioterrorism disasters and responding to future healthcare disaster. Hospitals face various challenges while using an ICS. Firstly, the program requires experienced and professionals to undertake and most hospital, especially those found in local areas and villages, lack such professionals making it hard to implement the program. Additionally, using an ICS is costly as the hospital has to cater for expenses of trainers, training equipments and other costs incurred during the implementation process.
Allocating money for various programs within the health care facility is the most challenging issue faced by the organization administrator. The allocation process would be done depending on the need. The biggest percentage of money would be allocated to training the staff on disaster preparedness and response in order to ensure the hospital is ready for any bioterrorism threat. Secondly, some money will be allocated to developing isolation area within the hospital. The area wil be and equipped with all facilities in order to allow effective and timely conducting of any test on people with potential signs of biological or chemical agents capable of causing a threat. Finally, the rest of the money will be used in promoting public health and educating the public on disaster preparedness and response through campaigns, rood-shows, and advertisements in the media.
The healthcare industry lacks full preparation in handling bioterrorist attacks. Healthcare providers and nurse practitioners lack information on how to suspect and isolate people with potential signs of bioterrorism attacks. Additionally, the high rate of corruption experienced in the healthcare sector prevents hospitals from offering necessary training programs to their staff on disaster preparedness and response. On the other hand, most institutions offering courses in medicine and nursing produce half-baked professionals who lack ideas on how to identify and respond to different biological and chemical agents that cause bioterrorism. Finally, most healthcare facilities lack essential facilities to deal with a bioterrorism attack. In most cases, hospitals refer patients suspected of a bioterrorism attack to other well-equipped facilities because they lack necessary equipments and professionals to handle such cases.
References
Center for Disease Control and Prevention. (May 20, 2013). Facts about Sarin. Retrieved
November 19, 2014 from http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/sarin/basics/facts.asp
McCoy, K. and Sebring, A. (2001). Public Health preparedness for Bioterrorism. Retrieved
November 19, 2014 from
http://www.udel.edu/DRC/emforum/recordings/20010214.html
Wyllie, D. (May 9, 2012). Operation RAIL SAFE: Ensuring US railway security. Retrieved
November 19, 2014 from
http://www.policeone.com/federal-law-enforcement/articles/5503847-Operation-RAIL-SAFE-Ensuring-US-railway-security/
