Appendix B
Extracts from Recent National Research Council Reports
Biological Science and Biotechnology in Russia: Controlling Diseases and Enhancing Security (2005)
This report sets forth four key themes, or pillars, for countering infectious diseases in Russia. They represent the committee’s view of priority areas for development over time.
Four Pillars for Countering Infectious Diseases
Pillar One: Improving Surveillance and Response
-
Establish two model State Sanitary Epidemiological Surveillance Centers for surveillance, diagnosis, analysis, and communication of information concerning infectious disease episodes.
-
Integrate Russia’s anti-plague network fully into the national public health surveillance system and then into global systems.
Pillar Two: Meeting Pathogen Research Challenges
-
Concentrate financial support at carefully selected research groups that are, or have the potential to become, centers of scientific excellence.
-
Upgrade laboratory facilities and equipment for appropriate infectious disease-related research at selected laboratories throughout the country.
Pillar Three: The Promise of Biotechnology
-
Develop a business environment that encourages investment in biotechnology activities in Russia.
-
Promote investment in biotechnology niches that are well suited for activities based in Russia.
Pillar Four: The Human Resource Base
-
Encourage postdoctoral scientists to remain in Russia as practicing scientists through mentoring programs that prepare them for positions of leadership in various fields that support the control of infectious diseases.
-
Continuously expand the professional competence of specialists in fields related to infectious disease, particularly enhancing their ability to address multidisciplinary challenges through advanced training programs.
Modifying the Approach to Bilateral Cooperation
-
Establish a bilateral U.S.-Russian intergovernmental commission on the prevention and control of infectious diseases.
-
Complete the integration of former Soviet biodefense facilities that are no longer involved in defense activities into the civilian research and production infrastructure of the country.
-
Focus U.S. and other Western programs on establishing true partnerships in Russia.
• • •
Letter Report on the Threat Agent Detection and Response (TADR) System Database (2006)
Challenges
-
The data collection and processing technology is complex.
-
Three sets of reporting requirements should be integrated into a single system.
-
Stable funding will be difficult to ensure.
-
Recruitment, training, and retention of personnel capable of operating the TADR network will be a constant concern.
-
Governments are already apprehensive over the possibility of U.S. control of all data.
-
Full compliance in providing “all” required data to the General Data Repository (GDR) will be difficult.
-
The selection of a location or locations for the GDR in the United States is critical.
-
Review of large quantities of raw data transmitted to the GDR in the United States—starting from the initial report of a disease occurrence by a clinician through laboratory analyses of both suspected pathogens and human and animal tissue samples—would probably result in many false alarms.
-
Effective integration of human and animal disease surveillance, reference diagnostics, and reporting activities will be difficult, both in the host countries and in the United States.
Significant Conclusions
Given the foregoing observations, we offer the following conclusions on three key aspects of the TADR network prior to turning to specific recommendations.
-
The TADR network is well designed to support the U.S. government’s strategy for strengthening Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) compliance while also supporting the mission of the Department of Defense (DOD) more broadly.
-
Sustainability of the TADR network after the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) completes its participation in the program is critical.
-
An essential element of sustainability is the broadening of the focus of the network from the 16 agents, classes of agents, and diseases of primary interest to DOD for proliferation reasons.
Recommendations
-
A single GDR should be located at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
-
An important recipient of data from CDC should be the Centers for Epidemiology and Animal Health of the Veterinary Services of the Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in Fort Collins, Colorado.
-
A U.S. government organization should not be the primary entity for sending information from the TADR network to international organizations.
-
Although the TADR network is currently being installed in several countries, DTRA should select one country as a site for evaluation of a country-wide network as soon as possible.
-
A feasible mechanism for addressing these questions would be a conference to be held 12 to 18 months from now, when the TADR network should be sufficiently well established in at least one country to permit evaluation.