New York better equipped for bio-terror attack before GOP convention

Federal authorities are shipping chemical warfare antidote packs to New York and Boston ahead of this summer's presidential conventions to be held in the two cities, but federal and city officials said there is no urgent terror scare, local media reported Wednesday.

"These are just the first states getting their chem packs," said Karen Hunter, spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Controland Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security was also quick to downplay the significance of moving the chem packs to convention sites early.

"There is no specific, credible intelligence about a chemical attack in New York or anywhere else," said Brian Roehrkasse.

The chem packs contain a variety of antidotes that can fight chemicals like nerve agents or cyanide. The packs will be distributed in all 50 states by 2006.

Unlike most cities, New York already has the chem packs in stock because the city was part of a pilot program started more than a year ago by CDC and the Department of Homeland Security.

The city now has a new bioterrorism detection laboratory capable of handling 2 million tests a year on 400,000 specimens.

Officials with the city's Health Department said this capability is especially important when testing for agents such as anthrax, which can require thousands of samples to be tested in a short time.

The renovation has also made the laboratory more efficient in testing for West Nile virus and SARS, as well as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases.

Source:Xinhua