A new model of bioterrorism risk assessment

Abstract

There has been an abundance of different bioterrorist attack scenarios and consequently an unclear biodefense strategy so far. We present a framework for bioterrorism risk assessment that we believe would be useful for policymakers and understandable without needing to be an expert in this field. We retrieved the Medline database via PubMed (from January 1987 to January 2009) and cross-referenced and reviewed the terms biological weapons, biological attacks, bioterror, bio(defense), bio(strategy) and epidemiologic models, and risk assessment. Additionally, we conducted an internet search with the same terms and strategy. We divided bioterrorist attacks into 3 categories: strategical (large-scale), operational (middle-scale), and tactical (small-scale). A bioterrorist attack is presented as a 4-component chain model, including perpetrators, agents, means of delivery, and targets. For any of these 4 components, we propose quantitative and qualitative risk assessment parameters. Here we present a simple scoring system within our model applied to the 2001 U.S. anthrax attacks.