Health Security Challenges: Biological Weapons and Pandemic Influenza

This article examines two disease-based threats to Australia’s security—biological weapons and pandemic influenza—and the national and international dimensions of Australia’s response. Overall, the best response is to increase public health capacity because the measures needed to protect people during a naturally-occurring infectious disease outbreak are largely the same as would be required to mitigate a biological attack. The article assesses also that the Biological Weapons Convention should be supported as an emerging instrument of global health, and that the Australian Government needs to improve its published plan for responding to pandemic influenza, especially with regard to vaccines.