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Title:

Clinical Management of Potential Bioterrorism-Related Conditions

Authors:

Amesh A. Adalja, Eric Toner,Thomas V. Inglesby

Date posted:

March 04, 2015

Publication type:

Article

Publication:

N Engl J Med 2015;372(23):2272-2273

Publisher:

Massachusetts Medical Society

DOI:

10.1056/NEJMc1504248

Availability:

Available on publisher's website

See also:

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Introduction:

In this article, we review the clinical management of deliberate infection with several pathogens of greatest bioweapons concern. On the basis of historical incidents coupled with information on ease of dissemination, contagiousness, mortality rates, public health impact, ability to engender panic, and the need for special preparedness,1-3 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stratifies pathogens and toxins into three risk categories — A, B, and C — with category A meriting the highest level of concern and preparedness.4,5 In this review, we consider diseases that are caused by category A agents for which there are high-quality clinical data in the unclassified literature (see the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org). The category A viral hemorrhagic fever viruses are beyond the scope of this review.