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Food bioterrorism preparedness

Australia's preparedness to deal with bioterrorism including bioterrorism and the food supply is discussed in two recent papers.

The earlier of these papers (Medical Journal of Australia 176 2002 251 ) highlights the fact that Australia's federal system of government requires close collaboration between the Commonwealth, and States and Territories. Emergency service responses are coordinated by Emergency Management Australia. Public health agencies work with emergency services in the States and collaborate through Communicable Diseases Network Australia and the Public Health Laboratory Network to coordinate national reporting, surveillance, laboratory diagnosis of and public health responses to communicable disease outbreaks.

The second paper is a special report from the Commonwealth Chief Medical Office titled Protecting Australia from Communicable Diseases: Ever ybody 's Business. This is a wide ranging review primarily concerned with unintentional outbreaks of communicable disease but contains a section headed Terrorism - Is Fear More Dangerous Than Disease? The point is made that biological agents have limitations as weapons and the strategies to detect and control deliberate biological threats are similar to those used by authorities to deal with natural biological agents.

A review of Australia's policies and capacity in this important area has encompassed advice from various services including the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States, the World Health Organization and the UK Public Health Laboratory Ser vice.

The CDC has ranked biological agents that could be used as weapons into three categories taking into account the severity of the disease caused, the potential for the organism to spread and the disruption and panic that could be caused. Category A, the highest, includes the agents responsible for smallpox, anthrax, plague, botulinum toxin and a number of rare viruses.

Category B agents include those that are moderately easy to disseminate, cause moderate morbidity and low mortality and may require enhanced diagnostic capacity and surveillance. A subset of category B agents includes pathogens that are food or waterborne. These include:

• Salmonella species,
• Shigella dysenteriae,
• Escherichia coli 0157,
• Vibrio cholerae ,and
• Cryptosporidium parvum.

The CDC also has compiled categories of chemical agents which might be used in a terrorist attack (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 49 2000 1 ). The priority order for these chemicals is based on the following criteria:

• chemical agents known to be used as weaponry,
• availability of chemical agents to potential terrorists,
• chemical agents likely to cause major morbidity or mortality,
• potential of agents for causing public panic and social disruption, and
• agents that require special action for public health preparedness.

The CDC has also outlined its intention to develop a multilevel laboratory response network with four functional levels depending on the degree of specialisation of the laboratory and the level of biosecurity and bio-safety available.

The Commonwealth Government has two separate initiatives in place to strengthen this country 's capacity to deal effectively with the threat of bioterrorism. One of these involves developing a register of laboratories handling pathogenic microorganisms and accompanying security aspects while the other focuses on a register of laboratory capability to work with a range of potential bioterrorism agents. While the emphasis is on biological agents, laboratory capability with chemical agents could also be included.

In a separate initiative an industry/government group, the Food Chain Assurance Advisory Group (FCAAG) is developing a draft national strategy to address key gaps identified in its own strategic analysis of the existing food safety and security system. As with other similar countries, Australia has a comprehensive system of government and industry procedures to ensure the safety of the food supply. These arrangements focus on natural or accidental contamination of the food supply. It is now necessary to ensure these systems are sufficiently robust to deal with the potential for acts of deliberate contamination.

Further information on FCAAG can be obtained from:
Alan Edwards
Department of Agriculture,Fisheries and Forestry
Tel:+61 2 6272 4513.