- Day 1 Terrorists secretly release anthrax at a packed
football stadium during a match in a British city.
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- Day 2 Everything seems normal
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- Day 3 Some 400 people in the city go to their GPs with
flu-like symptoms. As flu has been increasing recently, the doctors suspect
nothing and send their patients home with instructions to stay in bed and
drink plenty of fluids.
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- Day 4 Some of the patients seem sicker than would be
expected from a normal flu outbreak, and the firsts tests are done. They
identify a bacillus bacteria, but this causes no great alert as some bacilli
are relatively harmless. But patients begin dying. By the end of the day
1,200 are ill, 80 have died.
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- Day 5 The number of patients doubles and doctors recommend
isolating victims to try to slow the spread of the disease. The football
stadium is identified as the centre of the epidemic. Finally, anthrax is
suspected and identified. Treatment by antibiotics is prescribed, but they
have to be given early on in the infection, and there are not enough for
everyone affected. Supplies of vaccines are also limited. 2,700 have fallen
ill; 300 have died.
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- Day 6 The antibiotics run out. Media reports that they
were distributed unfairly lead to riots. Doctors now realise that not all
victims were at the match; some lived nearby. Study of the weather on Day
1 suggests that people living within eight miles downwind are at risk.
Panic rises. Gyms and shelters are opened for the ill as hospitals run
out of beds. 3,200 ill; 900 dead.
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- Day 7 More antibiotics arrive. The authorities announce
that all the dead must be cremated. More panic. The city begins to grind
to a halt as bus and train drivers refuse to enter it, even though they
are assured that anthrax is not infectious. 4,000 ill; 1,600 dead.
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- Day 8 The city becomes virtually paralysed. Schools
are closed. Medical services are running down as many doctors and nurses
are falling ill. Public transport has virtually collapsed. 4,800 ill; 2,400
dead.
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- The number of infected people does not rise after this,
as anthrax does not pass from person to person, but the death toll rises
until it reaches 4,000. The area downwind from the stadium becomes known
as the "Dead Zone" abandoned by families and businesses alike.
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- This scenario is based on one drawn up for US authorities
by experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies
in Baltimore. They also compiled a scenario for a release of smallpox,
which would pose more difficult problems, because the disease is both contagious
and has an incubation period of up to two weeks, meaning it would have
spread further before being detected.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/
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