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What the Novel H1N1 Influenza Outbreak Can Teach us about Influenza as a Bioterrorism Weapon

Matthew P Morrow, Jian Yan, Amir S Khan, Kate E Broderick, Niranjan Y Sardesai

While we often see Influenza infections as part of our daily lives during winter in the United States, it is a virus with significant potential for manipulation into an agent that may be used in the framework of Bioterrorism. The Novel H1N1 outbreak of 2009 highlighted what our response is to such an unsuspected outbreak both on a national and global scale. The responses to this outbreak allowed us to avert significant damage from the Pandemic, but retrospective analysis suggests that if the outbreak had been more virulent, greater impact would have been felt on a global scale. This short review attempts to briefly summarize our response to the Novel H1N1 outbreak in the United States and to apply the knowledge gleaned from this analysis to a hypothetical Bioterrorism attack that employs a modified Influenza virus, an event that is unlikely but not impossible.