[Bioterrorism - a challenge for public health services].

Within the range of highly contagious diseases there are well-known diseases, and those caused by newly detected infectious agents (i. e. SARS) or, in the worst case, bioterror agents. Public Health Services as well as clinicians and practitioners will be confronted with a new paradigm of infectious disease control: not only the infectious agent itself, the constitution of the host or the environment will influence the spread of a disease, but also globalization, mobile societies and new communication systems. Thus, the emergence, respectively the re-emergence of such diseases demands new or better skills in management of infectious diseases. Finally, the demonstration of national and federal plans for smallpox control focuses on organisational, logistical and financial problems following the implementation of such plans.