• Moran Bodas, Landschaft Yuval, Ron Zadok, Zippora Hess, Batya Haran, Mimi Kaplan, and Arik Eisenkraft.
• Multidisciplinary Program for Emergency and Disaster Management, School of Public Health, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel. mbodas@gmail.com
• Biosecur Bioterror. 2012 Jun 1; 10 (2): 182-7.

AbstractIn the past decade, the 2001 anthrax incident in the U.S. and the 2003 SARS epidemic have highlighted the biological threat to civilian populations. The risk posed by the natural or manmade spread of biological agents among the population dictates a need for better national preparedness. One key component of this preparation is the establishment of a Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) of pharmaceuticals that would provide appropriate medical countermeasures in case of an outbreak. However, to reduce the expense of such a stockpile and to make it worthwhile, there is also a need for a shelf-life extension program (SLEP) through which pharmaceuticals could be extended beyond manufacturer-ascribed shelf life, as long as they meet regulation standards. In this article, we review the Israeli experience with the national ciprofloxacin stockpile procurement and shelf-life extension program.

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