In their report, The Apollo Program for Biodefense: Winning the Race Against Biological Threats, the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense has released critical recommendations for the U.S. to be better prepared to handle the challenges of future pandemics and essentially end the threats of potential biological warfare. The hope for The Apollo Program for Biodefense is to provide the United States with
[T]he opportunity to mobilize the nation and lead the world to meet these challenges: a world where we detect and continually trace any new pathogen from the source; where we can distribute rapid point-of-person tests to every household in the country within days of that detection; where effective treatments are already in-hand; where vaccine development and rollout occur in weeks rather than years; and where pandemics will never again threaten the lives and livelihoods of Americans and people around the world.
A large team of experts was consulted during four roundtables to brainstorm solutions for the following goals: “Ambitious pathogen biosurveillance innovations; Improving PPE and built environments; Advancing medical countermeasures to combat biological threats; and Ambitious improvements to microbial forensics and attribution.” Along with extensive research, the Commission used the input from these experts to outline core technology that the federal government would best prioritize to achieve these goals. The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense strongly believes implementation of their plan “would effectively end the era of pandemic threats by 2030.”
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