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The links below contain recent news articles and references of the subject.
Avian Flu: Avian influenza, or avian flu, is a disease that afflicts birds and can cause mass mortalities within flocks. The concern with avian flu for humans is the possibility that the avian influenza virus can mutate to become a form that will infect humans, givin rise to severe flu symptoms.
Bioterrorism: Bioterrorism is the use of biological organisms, such as bacteria or viruses, to cause disruption of society and inflict wide-spread harm to the population. The anthrax incident in 2001 involving letters containing anthrax spores being sent to member of Congress is an example of bioterrorism.
Chemical Terrorism: Chemical terrorism is the use of chemicals, such as nerve gas or industrial chemicals, to cause disruption of society and localized harm to the population. Chemicals are fast acting and an attack using chemicals would generally be limited to the incident location and surrounding area.
Emergency Management: Emergency management practices and policies are constantly changing to reflect new laws and lessons learned from actual events. Emergency management, including security, personal safety, first aid training, and disaster planning, is becoming part of the daily mindset for all sectors of society.
Emerging Infectious Diseases: Emerging infectious diseases encompasses a large number of relatively unknown diseases that affect a large number of people, mostly in developing countries but also in the U.S.. Some of the disease include Norovirus, which is the main culprit that causes most of the disease outbreak on cruise ships, Nipah Virus, Kala-azar (also known as Black death or Leishmaniasis), Ebola virus, Marburg virus, etc.. These emerging infectious diseases are difficult to treat.
Radiological Terrorism: Radiological terrorism involves the use of radioactive material to cause fear amongst the population and is generally a localized event. Because radioactivity is generally invisible (unless in high concentration) and is odor-free, locating radioactive material is done using detection meters.
West Nile Virus: West Nile virus (WNV) is a potentially serious illness that is spread by infected mosquitoes. The virus is cycled between mosquitoes and birds, and causes death among certain species of birds, horses, and less than 1% of humans exposed to the disease. In 2005, 100 people died in the U.S. from West Nile Virus.
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