Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association
Book review |
Preparedness Against Bioterrorism and Re-emerging Infectious Diseases. Kocik, Janiak, Negut (eds). IOS Press, 2004.
This book is a collection of presentations given at a NATO Advanced Research Workshop entitled ‘Preparedness Against Bioterrorism and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases—Regional Capabilities, Needs, and Expectations in Central and Eastern European Countries’ held 15–18 January 2003 in Warsaw, Poland. The meeting was organized by the Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, Warsaw, Poland in cooperation with the Cantazuzzino Institute, Bucharest, Romania. The editors indicate that the primary object of the workshop was ‘to provide countries in which bio-defense systems are currently under development with the experience and expertise of those that are more advanced and/or have already been exposed and responded to a bio-terrorist attack’. They further indicate that this approach was taken so that countries could build upon the experiences of other countries, and thus, more efficiently utilize the limited resources available for preparing for intentional and natural epidemics of infectious diseases. The editors conclude that ‘one of the main lessons learned from the meeting is that in most of the countries the existing systems of the management of biological threats are convoluted and fragmented’.
There were 33 presentations and, in general, they are uneven in the quality of the writing and in the usefulness of the information given. The authors were of many different disciplines. Some of them are quite general and do not present data that would generally be of use to countries. Some were very limited in their direction and a number of them suffered from the lack of appropriate editing.
The first section—‘Contemporary Epidemiology with Laboratory Support as a Biological Attack Identification Tool’—discusses the epidemiology of and the preparedness for bioterrorism, and the role of the laboratory, and surveillance. These presentations tended to be general in their direction but adaptable depending upon available resources. The quality of these papers is generally good.
The second section—‘National Approaches to Biodefense in Central and Eastern Europe Countries’—is more country specific and not necessarily applicable to other countries.
The third section—‘Risk Assessment, Crisis Management and NBC Training’—discusses in general the evaluation of risks and management issues, and gives some specific examples such as antibiotic resistance, genetically modified foods, and mass casualties. These presentations contain some useful information, again having to be tempered by resources available within countries.
The fourth section—‘Applied Research’—discusses various aspects of current research activities including prophylactic and post-exposure therapy, detecting biological threats, and methods of surveillance.
As a general text concerning preparedness against bioterrorism, I think it is vague and to some extent country specific. On the other hand, it does provide some useful information such as in the discussions of epidemiology, the role of laboratory, and surveillance. One does have to be careful about extrapolating data from the country-specific discussions to one's own country, and certainly consider the availability of resources and what the country perceives as biological threats.
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