Agroterrorism: A Guide for First Responders

5. Strategies and Tactics

5 strategies and tactics A s communities start planning the response to an agroterrorism incident, there are several issues to address in their plans. To begin this process, each community should review the applicable state animal health emergency response plan so as to better understand the expectations of their state in the case of an animal health emergency. Additionally, local communities should take the time to study the state emergency operations plan, particularly the annexes that may be utilized in the case of an animal health emergency or a terrorist incident. This warrants repeating: study the animal health emergency response plan and terrorism annex for both the local and state emergency operations plans. surveillance and detection Surveillance is a key part of the response to a bioterrorism incident, regardless of whether the target is livestock, crops, or people. It is important to understand that the earlier a bioattack is noticed, the more effective medical treatment will be.1 As shown with the National Animal Health Emergency Response Plan (NAHERP), detection of an animal disease is assumed to take place at the livestock owner or county extension agent level. In a November 2000 article published by the Federation of American Scientists, Dorothy Preslar writes: “The observations of the animal owner or farm manager, the general impressions of the herd or flock noted by a veterinarian or agriculture extension officer, or examinations or tests of individual animals when disease is suspected or evident are basic to surveillance.”2 So what is surveillance? Many have their opinions, and the United States does have an animal health surveillance program, but it is limited to only a few diseases. Preslar defines surveillance as “the creation of important and essential information on all significant factors of disease outbreaks information that may allow us to know how and why the disease has occurred, and if the disease is changing, spreading into new areas or infecting new species; and that may suggest ways to prevent future occurrences .”3 Preslar goes on to state the root of the problem with the state of the surveillance in the United States animal health system. “However, with our [U.S.] system of notifiable diseases, this base of information may be set aside, and sometimes not even preserved in an easily accessible form, if the diagnostic test indicates a disease not on the notification list, or is inconclusive in a situation where the problem is confined to a few small farms, a kind of hit-and-run scenario.”4 In essence, if the disease is not on a state or national watch list, then medical surveillance is not very helpful . In a proposal to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Marc Mattix states: “Efforts should be directed toward improving our surveillance system in order to more quickly detect a bio-terrorism incident based on the appearance of disease symptoms.”5 Besides monitoring the herd on the farm, surveillance should also include information from port-of-entry import inspection and quarantine, immigration screening and fumigation, extension services and field investigations , and diagnostic and research facilities.6 The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), U.S. Customs, U.S. Border Patrol, Immigration and Naturalization Service, and U.S. Coast Guard are the segments of border security and have had a highly effective system for ports of entry. However, when one considers the number of containers that enter the United States from foreign ports, it is unrealistic to expect APHIS to be able to inspect all of these containers.7 Therefore, instead of limiting the information gathered to an exclusive list of diseases from a select group of people, signs and symptoms should be gathered and compiled on a central database that is available to a variety of sources, including private veterinarians, farm owners, USDA county extension agents, and educational and research institutions. These people must make timely and accurate reports. Additionally, this database must be analyzed by persons with expertise in animal diseases.8 Finally, this database must have controls on it that provide security, yet allow timely, unfettered access to the information for those with a need to know. One method of providing this database would be to couple it with the human health surveillance system. Much of the computerization and hardware would be the same. In fact, with current capabilities, it could be placed on the Internet with heavy encryption capabilities to protect the privacy of those in the system and prevent accidental...