Science Alert February 21, 2019
To investigate what this kind of hypothetical threat might look, an international team of researchers (Australia, Fiji, USA- USINDOPACOM, Emory University, New Zealand, UK, Western Samoa, Tonga, industry) recently led a complex international simulation of such an attack, called Exercise Mataika to simulate a worst-case, large scale bioterrorist attack. The aim was to determine the duration and magnitude of the epidemic under different scenarios and scenarios where the current stockpile of vaccine is adequate. In a worst-case scenario, at the peak of the epidemic worldwide, it showed that only 50 percent of smallpox cases are isolated, only 50 percent of contacts are tracked and vaccinated, causing a catastrophic blow-out in the epidemic. When it becomes a pandemic, the workforce is decimated, leaving critical infrastructure, transport, power, communications and food supplies compromised, and trust in government and authority structures has disappeared. It takes more than a billion doses and 10 years to stop the epidemic. According to the researchers the results and lessons learned should be considered by every country in the world…read more. Open Source TECHNICAL ARTICLE 1Â , 2Â
Tags: Bioterrorism,