My class that focuses primarily on epidemiology is using a cool ap that is run by the cdc. It essentially is an app that gives you data on an outbreak and you have to work through where the outbreak originated and how it originated. The one that I just completed was really interesting and a little tricky to figure out. It involved an anthrax outbreak, which with the facts presented looks to be a bioterror attack. The facts are very misleading though, it is a total accidental release of the anthrax bacterium into the air. A drum instructor took a trip to Africa and bought goat skins for making his drums. The drums weren’t properly cleaned off the anthrax that they had been exposed to. You later find out that he also failed to check the skins in at customs, so no one ensured that the proper cleaning process was completed in order to make sure the skins safe for travel. And just because someone didn’t register their possessions with customs no one checked to make sure there was nothing harmful on the skins. I think the point of the simulation is to show you that an outbreak can happen for any reason and outbreaks don’t know border limits. But most importantly the people working to find where an outbreak started don’t have an easy job and have to comb through thousands of pieces of data to ensure they know what pathogenic agent they are dealing with.
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