Federal and state officials have stepped up bioterrorism security measures at the upcoming Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the Associated Press reported today (see GSN, Jan. 22).

“It’s almost a planned public health emergency,” said Patrick Meehan, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official in charge of Olympics preparations.  “You have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people descending on a city.”

The CDC has moved part of one of the eight “push packages” in the U.S. pharmaceutical stockpile to a secret location near the Olympics (see GSN, Jan. 29). Enough medication is being moved to treat a large number of people for a variety of diseases for hours until more medication can be sent, said Scott Williams, Utah’s Olympic health officer.

Utah and the CDC are also working together to increase surveillance for a bioterrorism attack, according to the AP.  Epidemiologists will monitor hospitals, pharmacies and Olympic facilities for any suspicious health problems to quickly detect such an attack.

“Once you start seeing cases, the amount of time you have left to respond is crushingly small,” said former CDC official C.J. Peters.  “So you’d better get the first case.”

About 500 Utah Health Department staff members will take part in the surveillance operation, the AP reported.  The CDC is sending several dozen of its staff, including some “disease detectives,” to assist in the effort.

“This is a much more intense level of surveillance than any state or local health department does regularly,” Williams said (Erin McClam, Associated Press, Feb. 6).

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