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PLAGUE
JAMA published a consensus article covering
plague as a biological weapon. The pdf file is available here:
- Yersinia pestis is
available worldwide; it can be mass produced; it can be disseminated
using an aerosol; it has a high fatality rate (pneumonic form); and
it has a potential for person to person transmission.
- The first plague pandemic was in 541AD and killed
about 50% of the European population.
The second plague pandemic started in 1346 and killed 20
million over the next 130 years.
The third pandemic began in China in 1855 and killed
12million in Asia. Plague
infested fleas were used by the Japanese against the Chinese in
WWII.
- Plague is endemic in some parts of the
US. Naturally
occurring plague results from flea bites and past epidemics
have been associated with large numbers of rodents deaths
because the plague is an enzootic in rats, squirrels,
prairie dogs, and other rodents.
From 1947 to 1996 there were 390 cases of plague in
the US. In 1995, an Ohio microbiologist was arrested after
he fraudulently obtained Y pestis through the mail.
- Pneumonic plague can be
transmitted from person to person.
In 1997 a patient in Madagascar with bubonic
plague and secondary pneumonic infection transmitted
pneumonic plague to 18 others, 8 of whom died.
- After an aerosol dissemination of
plague people will begin to present within 1-7 days.
Many cases from an aerosol dispersal of
plague will follow a rapidly fatal course.
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