THE emergency planning in Worcestershire is as good as anywhere in the country, according to one of the region's health experts.

Dr David Kirrage, a consultant in communicable disease control for South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust, said the county's health services had been preparing for chemical and biological attacks since before the September 11 terrorist attacks.

He said the Trust took the view that an emergency incident could happen at any time.

"Our view is that, although internationally the situation is uncertain, we can face dangerous incidents at any time of the day," said Dr Kirrage.

He said health workers had carried out a large number of multi-agency exercises, including decontamination practice.

And, while Worcestershire may not be at the top of terrorists' hit lists, Dr Kirrage said they were not being complacent.

"If there was to be an attack, it might affect large conurbations, which would need help from other parts of the country," he said.

"We have a whole range of biological and chemical threats to prepare for, but we have no evidence to suggest which is most likely.

Large numbers

"We have arrangements in place for handling large numbers of patients, and well developed plans for decontaminating patients."

Killer diseases such as smallpox and anthrax have been mentioned as possible weapons at terrorists' disposal, but Dr Kirrage said the public should not panic.

He said the public was not being vaccinated against smallpox because it would do more harm than good.

"The smallpox vaccine is an old vaccine, with a high level of side effects compared to newer vaccines," he said.

"We would do more harm by vaccinating the public when there is no smallpox around than we would if we didn't vaccinate them."

He said there was an alert system in place on a national level, which measured the risk of the British public contracting smallpox on a scale of zero to five. The alert is currently on zero.

A small number of health workers are being vaccinated nationally. These people will be responsible for administering the vaccinations if the threat of a smallpox outbreak increases.

Dr Kirrage said people should be sensible. "We've done a lot of planning for an unlikely eventuality," he said. "In Worcestershire, the amount of training we've done matches that of anywhere in the country."