Modeling the logistics response to a bioterrorist anthrax attack

As a bioterrorist anthrax attack has serious consequences, an emergency management plan that can reduce the number of casualties should be studied. However, the papers studying this area are still few. This paper proposes a model which links the disease progression, the related medical intervention actions and the logistics deployment together to help crisis managers to extract crucial insights on emergency logistics management from a strategic level standpoint. This model is a multi-period one with the consideration of the period when the patients transfer into the different disease stages, the period when the medical intervention begins and the change of the recovery rate because of the time lag between the two aforementioned periods. Our model can support the decision making process in case of a real anthrax attack and evaluate the important factors, which can have a great impact on the number of casualties.