title: Development of a risk-priority score for category A bioterrorism agents as an aid for public health policy.
abstract: In developing public health policy and planning for a bioterrorist attack or vaccination of military personnel, the most common method for assigning priority is using the probability of attack with a particular agent as the single criterion. Using this approach, smallpox is often dismissed as an unlikely threat. We aimed to develop an evidence-based, systematic, multifactorial method for prioritizing the level of risk of each category A bioterrorism agent. Using 10 criterion, anthrax scored the highest, followed by smallpox. Tularemia was the lowest scoring agent. We suggest that such a system would be useful for developing public policy, stockpiling of vaccines and therapeutics, vaccination of military personnel, and planning for public health responses to a bioterrorist attack.
authors.affiliation: National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases, The Children's Hospital at Westmead and the University of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
authors.forename: C Raina
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: MacIntyre
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Seccull
authors.forename: J Michael
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Lane
authors.forename: Aileen
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Plant
mesh_terms: D000881:Anthrax / Q000517:prevention & control; D023482:Bioterrorism / Q000145:classification*; D003659:Decision Making, Organizational; D006291:Health Policy; D006292:Health Priorities / Q000145:classification*; D006801:Humans; D008889:Military Personnel; D011050:Policy Making; D011635:Public Health Administration / Q000592:standards*; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D012899:Smallpox / Q000517:prevention & control; D014481:United States; D014612:Vaccines / Q000145:classification / Q000600:supply & distribution*
chemical_list: D014612:Vaccines