Rapid response with antibiotics would be a more effective way of handling an anthrax terror attack than a pre-emptive mass vaccination program, scientists said on Wednesday. They estimate that if people exposed to anthrax spores received antibiotics within six days, 70 percent of infections could be prevented. Delaying treatment 10 days or more however would cut the figure to less than 50 percent. “Strengthening the public health infrastructure to improve early detection and rapid response is going to be a better use of resources to improve disease surveillance and to get drugs out to people quicker than a mass pre-attack vaccine program,” said Ron Brookmeyer, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. Full Story
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