International bioterror drill reveals communications flaws
Emergency Management Alert, January 13, 2004
A multi-country bioterrorism exercise held in September 2003 highlighted problems in intergovernmental communications capabilities and national response capabilities, the Canadian Press reports.
The sheer volume of e-mail traffic generated during Exercise Global Mercury caused a Canadian server to crash for four hours, while teams from France and Mexico dealt with a language barrier. In addition, the countries were unable to hold a conference call for all participants.
Canada's health ministry led the exercise, which included seven other countries (the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and Great Britain), the European Commission, and the World Health Organization. The drill was designed to assess how participating countries would be able to communicate with each other and coordinate responses if a smallpox attack were to occur.
The drill took place over 56 hours between September 8 and 10, with that period representing 12 days in time.
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