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August 28, 2002

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Pentagon to Track Disease Outbreaks"

Washington Times (www.washtimes.com) (08/28/02) P. A1; Hess, Pamela

The Department of Defense is sponsoring a $300 million, three-year pilot "medical surveillance" program this fall and winter as part of an effort to identify a potential biological attack before the disease becomes epidemic.  The system will use environmental monitors that will sample the air for biological agents, as well as software to collect information from pharmacies, hospitals, and physicians' offices; the data will be sent to a central system that will look for increases of unusual symptoms.  The Pentagon's program is being implemented to determine what types of monitoring and reporting systems can rapidly identify disease outbreaks.  The system will be tested in Washington, D.C., Albuquerque, N.M., and two other sites for which the Department of Defense will hold a "competition" later this year in which other cities can nominate themselves to be trial locations.

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