Thaindian News

Washington, Oct 18 (IANS) The threat of a biological terror attack is still “real and challenging,” although a large amount of money has been spent on counter-measures over the last decade, a senior US official has stated.

On the 10th anniversary of the anthrax attacks that followed 9/11, Alexander G. Garza, Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, said before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: “A wide-area attack using aerosolized Bacillus anthracis, the bacteria that causes anthrax, is one of the most serious mass casualty threats facing the U.S.”

The hearing, titled “Ten Years After 9/11 and the Anthrax Attacks: Protecting Against Biological Threats,” was attended by top officials from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI, Xinhua reported.

“A successful anthrax attack could potentially expose hundreds of thousands of people, and cause illness, death, fear, societal disruption and economic damage,” Garza said.

Ten years ago, a series of letters containing anthrax spores were sent to some congressional offices and the offices of several news outlets, killing five and sickening 17.

The hearing was held after the WMD Terrorism Research Center recently unveiled a new report examining the nation’s preparedness for a biological attack.

The US government has spent more than $65 billion on bio-defence since 2001, and yet it has done so without an end-to-end, strategic assessment of the nation’s bioresponse capabilities, the report said.