Laboratory Diagnosis of Bioterrorism Agents

Activate the Laboratory Response Network to rapidly detect and mitigate bioterrorism, using indicators like unusual diseases, mixed agents, point-source outbreaks, aerosol transmission, and atypical animal deaths.

Describe a tiered surveillance network from sentinel hospital laboratories to state and national centers, outlining preliminary testing, chain-of-custody, and reference lab referrals for bioterrorism agents.

Identify and respond to covert bioterrorism events by sentinel hospital laboratories, recognizing suspected agents in human specimens, coordinating collection, transport, and testing, with clinicians as first responders.

Identify animal reservoirs of Ebola viruses and Marburg virus; primates are involved but not reservoirs. Bats may harbor persistence; transmission is by contact with infected body fluids, with PPE required.

Contrast Variola major and Variola minor to clarify disease severity, mortality differences, vaccination implications, and smallpox transmission via respiratory droplets, incubation, and progression from fever to macular rash.

Yersinia pestis fueled plague pandemics from Justinian to the 19th century; fleas and the black rat transmitted the disease, with reservoirs like deer mice and prairie dogs sustaining urban outbreaks.

Explore the three forms of Yersinia pestis infection—bubonic plague, septicemia, and pneumonic plague—focusing on buboes, lymphadenopathy, and transmission by flea, inoculation, or inhalation.

Investigate how forensic microbiology distinguishes drowning as a death cause by detecting diatoms in post-mortem tissue and comparing tissue with the drowning medium.

Explore the Mary Thorax investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks, detailing the FBI-led, multiagency effort, 10,000 witness interviews across six continents, and the breakthrough against Dr. Bruce Ivins.