Will Howard | v2.0.0Jan 31st 2024 | (+1349/-76) Merged the biosecurity and "biosecurity & pandemics" topics | ||
Will Howard | v1.0.0Jan 20th 2023 | (+258) |
Biosecurity covers the procedures, practices and other measures used to manage risks from biological agents (e.g. viruses, bacteria) or their products (e.g. toxins).
Pandemic preparedness is the set of measures to better prepare humanity for future pandemics.
Terminology
Pandemic preparednessThe term "biosecurity" has different meanings in different contexts. As a few examples:seteffective altruism community, biosecurity has been characterized as primarily covering "natural pandemics", "bioterrorism and the intentional deployment ofmeasures to better prepare humanitybiological weapons", and "dual use research and the possibility of accidental deployment of biological agents."[1]Further reading
Alexanian, Tessa (2021) A biosecurity and biorisk reading+ list, Effective Altruism Forum, March 13 (updated 16 March 2021).
Zabel, Claire (2017) Biosecurity as an EA cause area, Effective Altruism, August 13.
Related entries
biosurveillance | COVID-19 pandemic | existential risk | global catastrophic biological risk | Johns Hopkins Center for
future pandemics.Health Security | life sciences research | Nucleic Acid Observatory | Nuclear Threat Initiative | terrorism | weapons of mass destructionOpen Philanthropy (2014) Biosecurity, Open Philanthropy, January.