A Massachusetts group of
health-care organizations will develop a bioterrorism early
warning system using a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention grant.
The Harvard Consortium got $1.2 million to adapt its system
of analyzing records of patient visits to such providers as
clinics and hospitals to look for unusual patterns of illness.
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The Harvard Group will look for ways to distinguish possible
bioterrorist attacks from outbreaks of colds and influenza. The
system might eventually get nationwide use.
“Our belief is that the first sign of a bioterrorism attack
may be a larger-than-usual number of people seeking care for
something that looks like flu,” said study leader Richard Platt,
a Harvard Medical School professor of ambulatory care and
prevention. “When you look at the people who had anthrax,
typically they seemed to have like a respiratory infection that
was not unusual.”
The CDC project will try out the Harvard system in Colorado,
Minnesota, and other areas of the country, said Steven Solomon,
acting director of CDC’s division of health-care quality
promotion.
Bloomberg News
