The term biosurveillance is one used by medical and scientific professionals, analysts, and researchers. It is also a buzz word that has been used by both the Department of Homeland Security and the Centers for Disease Control as a way to describe an emerging defense program that focuses on uncommon threats that threaten the people, plants, and animals of the United States. But what does the term actually mean?
What Is It?
Biosurveillance is a system put in place to monitor and interpret data of biological, chemical, and agricultural threats. This is an emerging process that is still in its infancy but is expected to become a large part of the country’s national defense. It focuses on airborne, water-borne and food-borne threats that may be used as a weapon against the United States, its citizens, and its land. The process also characterizes outbreaks of any disease or virus and identifies potential bacteria and pathogen threats, ensuring that researchers can correctly identify a threat before it reaches the potential for mass harm.
How Is It Used?
In the United States, the Department of Homeland Defense is in charge of this process. It has two programs that focus on chemical and biological defense. The first is called the “Enhanced Passive Surveillance Program,” and is currently working to design and implement a proof-of-concept system that identifies endemic and emerging diseases in livestock in the country; once expanded, it will focus on determining threat levels to ensure officials are alerted if a threat arises. The second program is called the “BioThreat Awareness APEX Program” and focuses on delivering detection systems to state and local health officials. The program is also tasked with providing adequate information on how to track and identify potential chemical and biological threats to these officials so that they can educate their communities.
Who Oversees This Process?
The Department of Homeland Defense, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control, is responsible for the design, creation, development, and implementation of these systems in the United States. The CDC’s stated role is to utilize the process by integrating it into electronic health data so that information on a potential threat can spread easily across the country and around the world. With the new administration still in its first 100 days, the implementation plan has yet to be unveiled; more information is expected to be made available soon.
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Why Is It Important?
A strategy for surveilling chemical, agricultural, and biological threats is critical to both public health and national security. Chemical agents, engineered diseases, and agricultural threats can decimate a population, bring down stocks, cause widespread panic, and kill hundreds of thousands of people. By having the system in place, a government is better equipped to identify and eliminate threats before reaching the public. It’s also important because not having a process put in place weakens a country’s defenses and leaves them open to a biological attack from an unknown enemy with little way to trace it back to the point of origin.
This is a useful tool to assess and prepare to defend against chemical, biological, and agricultural threats. While the policy around this process is still new, the hope is that building this defense will keep the country safe.
