Introduction

The ability of hospitals to respond appropriately to the threat of bioterrorism is dictated to a large extent by the capabilities of state and local health departments and of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This interdependence arises from several facts:

• Hospital clinical laboratories may lack the ability to rapidly identify specific pathogenic organisms used in an attack and typically lack the high-level containment facilities needed to process materials that contain highly contagious pathogens such as variola virus, which causes smallpox, or the plague bacillus. Local, state, and national laboratories are often utilized to provide these services.