Experts from the emergency services have been told how to spot signs of anthrax, plague and other bacterial agents which could be used in the event of a terrorist attack.

Dr Paul McWhinney, a consultant in infectious diseases at Bradford Royal Infirmary, told a major conference about the most likely biological agents which could be used by terrorists.

The event - organised by Bradford Royal Infirmary accident and emergency consultant Dr Pete Bradley and held at Bradford's National Museum of Photography, Film and Television - brought together police, fire and ambulance service representatives from West Yorkshire, the army and staff from other hospitals in the north to discuss how the district would cope in the event of chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear attack. Dr McWhinney was one of ten speakers at the event, including senior medical, police, fire and ambulance staff.

Speaking at the start of the conference, Dr McWhinney said any attack could involve anthrax, plague or tulareamia - an airborne infection which causes a pneumonia-type illness.

"If there was a release of something, a few people would present with illness in advance of the main bulk of people and that would give a potential window of time in which staff could start gearing up to deal with it," he said.

"The difficulty is trying to spot something big before it becomes a problem but not crying wolf too often. One of the clues would be if we started to see people who we would not normally expect to be ill with something. If we saw two or three fit young people with severe pneumonia we would start to wonder what had happened."

Dr Bradley only began organising the event three weeks ago, prompted by the increased threat of a terrorist attack in this country - but his ultimate message to members of the public was one of reassurance.

"In hospitals, we like to prepare for the unexpected but that is usually something accidental, such as a train crash. When you get a situation where someone is wilfully causing harm that is more difficult to manage," he said.

"We would need to manage the agents used, which are likely to be considerably toxic. There is also likely to be a degree of hysteria.

"For example, if something was released at a shopping centre, it is likely that anybody who had been anywhere near there would go to hospital.

"The idea of this conference is that we work together - and we would cope if anything happened. That is what we do."

In the next few months, West Yorkshire Fire Service will take delivery of a mass decontamination vehicle, which will carry equipment including large shelters to be used for decontamination procedures and which will be used at the site of any incident involving chemical, biological or nuclear agents. Senior operations officer Paul Daly said the service was leading the way in developing a framework for dealing with major incidents.

Dave Lawson, the emergency planning officer for West Yorkshire Ambulance Service, said the area was one of 14 across the country which held national reserves of equipment for use in the aftermath of a chemical or biological attack, including anti-toxin drugs.