National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats

The National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats is a national cross-sectoral strategy of the United States of America. Its main objective is to protect against the misuse of the life sciences to develop or use biological agents to cause harm.
More specifically, the Strategy consists of the following objectives: (1) promote global health security: Activities that should be taken to increase the availability of and access to knowledge and products of the life sciences that can help reduce impacts of outbreaks of infectious disease whether of natural, accidental, or deliberate origin; (2) reinforce norms of safe and responsible conduct: Activities that should be taken to reinforce a culture of responsibility, awareness, and vigilance among all who utilize and benefit from the life sciences to ensure that they are not diverted to harmful purposes; (3) obtain timely and accurate insight on current and emerging risks: Activities that serve to improve threat identification, notification, and assessment capabilities as well as our understanding as to the global progress and presence of the life sciences to help identify and understand new and emerging challenges and inform appropriate actions to manage the evolving risk; (4) take reasonable steps to reduce the potential for exploitation: Activities that are targeted to identify, sensitize, support, or otherwise safeguard knowledge and capabilities in the life sciences and related communities that could be vulnerable to accidents or misuse; (5) expand our capability to prevent, attribute, and apprehend: Activities that are intended to further hone the Nation’s ability to identify and stop those with ill intent to reduce the risk of single, multiple, or sequential attacks; (6) communicate effectively with all stakeholders: Activities that should be conducted to ensure the Federal Government is advancing cogent, coherent, and coordinated messages; and (7) transform the international dialogue on biological threats: Activities targeted to promote a robust and sustained discussion among all nations as to the evolving biological threat and identify mutually agreed steps to counter it.