North Carolina will be the national model for a new system
to detect the earliest signs of an impending bio-terrorism attack and provide
warnings in time to minimize damage to human and animal life as well as the
environment The model, called North Carolina Bio-Preparedness Collaborative
(NCB-Prepared), will alert health officials and practitioners within hours of
symptom outbreaks that might indicate a bioterrorist attack, threat of disease,
food-borne illness or other threats to public health and safety. The congressionally
funded one-year, $5-million project is a cooperative agreement between the U.S.
Department of Homeland Security and the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill). Initial collaborators include UNC-Chapel Hill, North
Carolina State University and SAS Institute. The effort includes participation
of the N.C. Division of Public Health and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center
in Durham, as well as others from the public and private sectors. A chairman of
the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, was instrumental in
bringing together experts in threat detection, data collection and
dissemination, emergency preparedness and computer analytics to develop a model
early-warning system. He also sponsored a measure in Congress to provide a
$5-million grant to fund the project.
Comments? Email zaludreport@bnpmedia.com