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6 Hazard Identification and Assessment
Pages 80-88

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From page 80...
... At the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., the source of the contamination was evident and localized: A white powder had fallen out of an envelope, and the amount was relatively easy to charactenze. In contrast, the initial source of the Bacillus anthracis at the American Media, Inc.
From page 81...
... Syndromic surveillance monutors the frequency of symptom complexes identified in patients before the confirmation of a medical diagnosis. The surveillance systems complement routine public health surveillance, and they commonly provide the advamtage of near-real-time data entry, analysis, and reporting.
From page 82...
... Follow-up includes enhanced case finding; retrospective and prospective surveillance systems; and environmental assessments and sampling of patients' homes, work sites, and travel destinations over the period preceding symptom onset and consistent with the incubation penod of the suspected disease. Inveshgations can take weeks, during which time the released agent could be widely disseminated, in the case of spores, or transmitted, in the case of communicable diseases.
From page 83...
... , then fermentation; centrifuging and separation; drying; milling for respirable particle size; additives to prevent aggregation and clumping, neutralize electrical charge, and increase survival in air; and microencapsulation for stability and viability. Each phase leaves physical and chemical clues that can help investigators to distinguish the agent substance from a normal background presence.
From page 84...
... can lodge to the mucosa of the nasal cavity or the pharynx, causrug infection by local macrophages or gastrointestinal infection by ingestion, Particle clumps or droplets in the range 5-15 Em can lodge to the trachea. The most dangerous Infections are caused by 0.1-10 Em particles lodged in the lungs, where they may be retained to the upper bronchiole region (5-10 Em particles)
From page 85...
... That technology combines sample collection with a slit sampler, dichotomous sampler, or allglass impingers with statistical analysis to determine numbers of a viable agent, such as B anthnacis spores, in a single particle.
From page 86...
... of a suspected biological pathogen is required for proper analysis and to inform decision making, Recommendation 6-1 Research should be conducted to develop a characterization system that cam inexpensively identify, or approximately charactenze, all potential threat agents including genetically modified and emerging threat agents. Binding 6-2 Identifying and characterizing the properties of an organism (or organisms)
From page 87...
... in nature—have since been put in place with the hope of obtaining the earliest possible indicator regarding the release of a biological agent. Recommendation 63 Existing envirommental monitoring systems and syndromic surveillance systems need to be evaluated for their abilities to provide information that can be used to detect and to limit the spread of biothreat agents in a cost effective manner, if those systems prove to be effechve, they could be deployed in public facilities that may be likely targets for attacks, REIFEREN CES Btachm m, P.S., S.A.
From page 88...
... 2001. Charactenzing biological aemsol in a chamber: an appmach to estimation of viable organisms in a single biological particle.


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