Protecting and improving public health is an essential and rather serious task of organizations, society, communities, and individuals. Informed choices and organized efforts allow to enhance the quality of life and prolong it. Since recovering from a disease is a complicated process that requires much money, time, and action, it is always better to prevent getting sick or infected. This paper explores the importance of epidemiologic surveillance and its crucial role in a case of a bioterrorism attack.
To begin with, epidemiologic or public health surveillance is the systematic and continuous collection, interpretation, and analysis of the data related to health and is required to evaluate, plan, and implement people’s health practices. This process allows controlling whether there is a need for public health actions and what precisely the affected population requires (Government of New South Wales, 2017). Without epidemiologic surveillance, it is impossible to detect and notify about health events, investigate and confirm causes of outbreaks, effectively guide public health strategies and policies, and have an early warning system (Government of New South Wales, 2017). Thus, the primary importance of epidemiologic surveillance is that it allows to control and efficiently address disease threats and outbreaks, as well as prevent future risks.
Therefore, in the case of a bioterrorism attack, public health surveillance also plays a crucial role. An intentional threat of release or actual release of biological agents to cause death or serious disease among livestock, crops, or the human population for various reasons is called a bioterrorism attack (Khan & Rafique, 2019). In such cases, the most important is to rapidly identify the event, assess its severity, and effectively implement the needed interventions. These are the tasks of public health surveillance, and this is why it is vital during bioterrorism attacks.
References
Government of New South Wales. (2017). Epidemiology and surveillance. Web.
Khan, S., & Rafique, I. (2019). Threats of bioterrorism in public health, epidemiological clue, detection and safety pre-cautions for outbreaks. Open Journal of Bacteriology, 3(1).