Global disease surveillance: health security and law enforcement alignment

This project aims to address the lack of disease surveillance for law enforcement. It does so by providing an in-depth feasibility assessment related to developing a security-centric biological surveillance system for the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) to detect early and prevent bioterrorism. Project activities include: (1) developing baseline situational reports summarizing existing global biosecurity threats; (2) developing guidance documents for law enforcement agencies identifying environmental and other risk factors that could impact the relevance of particular diseases to international security; (3) delivery of a needs-based analysis to identify INTERPOL’s reporting and communication needs; and (4) development of a technical prototype of the proposed surveillance platform.

The expected outcomes of this project include: (1) enhanced awareness by INTERPOL of local regional and global biological threats; (2) strengthened capacity of law enforcement agencies to target interventions to counter the impacts of biological threats; and (3) enhanced awareness by INTERPOL of the international impact of chemical biological radiological and nuclear security threats.