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MOST hospitals in the US are ill-prepared for even a limited biological
attack, two surveys have revealed. In other countries, where the threat has been
taken less seriously, hospitals are likely to be even less geared up.

Emergency departments are ready for “conventional” terrorist attacks such as
bombings, but not bioattacks. “When you are talking about biological weapons,
it’s a different scenario,” says Janet Williams of West Virginia University. Of
30 hospitals in the US contacted at random, 26 said they could only handle 10 to
15 victims of a bioterror attack, Williams told the American College of
Physicians meeting in Chicago last week. What’s more, 22 of the hospitals said
they would not be able to handle a chemical or nuclear attack.

Williams’s findings are backed by a larger study published in May, carried
out by Charles David Treser and his colleagues at the University of Washington
in Seattle. Of 186 hospitals in four north-western states, they found that fewer
than 20 per cent had plans for dealing with biological or chemical attacks.
Faced with 50 victims exposed to either sarin gas or anthrax, only 29 per cent
of the hospitals would have had sufficient drugs to treat the nerve gas victims,
and only 64 per cent enough antibiotics to treat the anthrax exposure.
Williams’s and Treser’s studies covered only a handful of states, but they say
the situation is probably similar elsewhere in the US. “It’s not that we are
unprepared, but we are certainly under-prepared” says Treser. “Our public-health
resources are stretched very thin.”

“Before September 11, the threat of an attack with weapons of mass
destruction was really just theoretical,” says Williams. “September 11 changed
all that. It was a wake-up call. What I hope will come is that this will fuel
the federal government into getting everybody trained.”