Biosecurity policy challenges: disease risks and risky responses: Submission to the Inquiry on Biosecurity and National Security, Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy
Biosecurity policy challenges: disease risks and risky responses: Submission to the Inquiry on Biosecurity and National Security, Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy
Summary
When a government approaches infectious diseases as problems of national security (as well as public health), there is greater potential for rallying powers and resources, but there is also a risk of biosecurity measures doing more harm than good.
According to its 2018 Biological Security Strategy, the UK government has a limited awareness of national biosecurity as a ‘two-edged sword’: it is aware of the challenge of securing laboratory research (to reduce the risks of accidental outbreaks and deliberate misuse of pathogens) without undermining potentially life-saving scientific research.
The COVID-19 experience in the UK shows that the government’s biosecurity strategy did not adequately anticipate another ‘biosecurity dilemma’: the challenge of implementing nonpharmaceutical responses to a significant disease outbreak without causing excessive harm to society.
A national biological security strategy should: guide efforts to address effectively and comprehensively the health and security risks posed by pathogenic microorganisms; and anticipate, and support the management of, the potential downsides to implementing certain kinds of biosecurity measures.
Biosecurity, biological weapons, infectious disease control, Pandemics, national security, social distance
Enemark, Christian
004b6521-f1bb-426a-a37b-686c6a8061f6
20 October 2020
Enemark, Christian
004b6521-f1bb-426a-a37b-686c6a8061f6
Enemark, Christian
(2020)
Biosecurity policy challenges: disease risks and risky responses: Submission to the Inquiry on Biosecurity and National Security, Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy.
Abstract
Summary
When a government approaches infectious diseases as problems of national security (as well as public health), there is greater potential for rallying powers and resources, but there is also a risk of biosecurity measures doing more harm than good.
According to its 2018 Biological Security Strategy, the UK government has a limited awareness of national biosecurity as a ‘two-edged sword’: it is aware of the challenge of securing laboratory research (to reduce the risks of accidental outbreaks and deliberate misuse of pathogens) without undermining potentially life-saving scientific research.
The COVID-19 experience in the UK shows that the government’s biosecurity strategy did not adequately anticipate another ‘biosecurity dilemma’: the challenge of implementing nonpharmaceutical responses to a significant disease outbreak without causing excessive harm to society.
A national biological security strategy should: guide efforts to address effectively and comprehensively the health and security risks posed by pathogenic microorganisms; and anticipate, and support the management of, the potential downsides to implementing certain kinds of biosecurity measures.
Text
Enemark submission 191020
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Submitted date: 19 October 2020
Accepted/In Press date: 19 October 2020
Published date: 20 October 2020
Keywords:
Biosecurity, biological weapons, infectious disease control, Pandemics, national security, social distance
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 444987
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/444987
PURE UUID: 60bc2cd6-593f-458c-ac68-8b7a6c35e156
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Date deposited: 16 Nov 2020 17:31
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 03:44
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