Report

Concern about acts of bioterrorism and infectious disease epidemics following the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the anthrax letters increased interest in developing ways to detect biological threats as quickly as possible. In response, in 2003, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) introduced the BioWatch program—a federal monitoring system intended to speed detection of specific biological agents that could be released in aerosolized form during a biological attack.

In 2008, at the direction of Congress, DHS asked the IOM and the National Research Council to convene a committee to evaluate the costs and merits of both the current BioWatch program and the plans for a new generation of BioWatch devices, to examine infectious disease surveillance through hospitals and public health agencies in the United States, and to consider whether BioWatch and traditional infectious disease surveillance are redundant or complementary.

The report says that the current BioWatch system requires better testing to establish its effectiveness and better collaboration with public health systems to improve its usefulness. The committee also sees a need for evaluation and improvement of infectious disease surveillance and disease detection resources in both the public health and health care systems. This document is the abbreviated version of the summary of the report.