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Canada worried about bioterrorism event

Ajit Jain in Toronto

The Canadian government is seriously concerned about the growing threat of bioterrorism. The health department has started stockpiling antibiotics and has prepared 165 field hospitals of 200 beds each across the country, reports say.

The country bought a large supply of antibiotics after the September 11 tragedy and it is in the process of buying more.

According to Health Canada spokesman Paige Raymond Kovach, there's a central depot in Ottawa and seven across the country, plus 1,600 pre-positioned supply centres that are under the combined management of the federal and provincial governments.

Canadian daily National Post has quoted from a official document, which says that a bioterrorist attack will lead to immense human and economic losses.

"An aerosolised anthrax attack on 100,000 Canadians ... without any effective post-attack intervention, is estimated to kill 33,000 people and cause an economic loss of $6.4-billion," the daily said quoting from the official document.

Another official document reportedly says, "While there is currently some capability to respond to outbreaks of disease... there are some additional components needed to adequately deal with a bioterrorist event."

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service believes that the nation is "as vulnerable as any of the other Western industrialised states to the kind of nightmarish, mass-casualty (chemical or biological) terrorist attack that until recently was confined to fiction".

Ottawa has advised all hospitals in the country to be on the alert for any abnormal patterns in symptoms that would suggest anthrax, plague, botulism and smallpox. The medical authorities have been advised to "adopt a higher level of vigilance for any sign of unusual disease that might be linked to a chemical or biological agent," it is reportedly stated.

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