DHS aims for faster detection of airborne pathogens

July 11, 2008

By Robert Roos
CIDRAP News Editor

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to adopt new automated equipment that will be able to detect dangerous airborne pathogens in major US cities in as little as 4 hours, with a goal of starting deployment in the fall of 2010, DHS officials told Congress last week.

The equipment is part of DHS's BioWatch program, which involves continuous testing of the air in 30 major cities for pathogens such as anthrax. The program was launched in the wake of the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, which killed five people and sickened 17 others.

Currently, filters from collection equipment are removed manually, taken to a laboratory, and tested, a process that takes from 10 to 34 hours, officials told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science and Technology. The new equipment will collect and test air samples automatically, reducing detection time to between 4 and 6 hours, officials said. The new system is also designed to test for more pathogens than the existing system.

The time savings "will potentially save thousands of lives each day an attack, such as anthrax, is detected ahead of human syndromic surveillance and other public health indicators," Robert Hooks, deputy assistant secretary for weapons of mass destruction and biodefense in DHS's Office of Health Affairs (OHA), told the subcommittee in written testimony.

For more information please refer to:

DHS officials' written statement to the House subcommittee
http://www.dhs.gov/xnews/testimony/testimony_1216227063453.shtm

Statement by the GAO's William O. Jenkins Jr. to the House subcommittee
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08960t.pdf

List of hearing witnesses with link to audio recording
http://homeland.house.gov/hearings/index.asp?ID=155