Storing anthrax antibiotic locally

Report: anthrax antibiotic should be stockpiled locally

3 October 2011

A new report describes a plan for the United States to be better prepared in the event of a bioterrorist attack using anthrax; the report recommends that public health officials in high-risk areas should consider stockpile anthrax antibiotics in local locations to make it easier to dispense quickly to an area of need, rather than continuing to use the single national stockpile.

The report – titled “Prepositioning Antibiotics for Anthrax” – was issued last Friday by the Institute of Medicine.

“If bioterrorists released aerosolized Bacillus anthracis (anthrax) over a large city, hundreds of thousands of people could need rapid access to antibiotics,” the report said. Dr. Robert Bass, chairman of the committee that wrote the report and executive director of the Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems, said the issue is not whether there is enough antibiotic to go around – because there is — but rather how to get it to people....

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