Chartered by the 'Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007' ® (Public Law 110-53), the National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC) is housed within the Department of Homeland Security. The mission of NBIC is to enable early warning and shared situational awareness of acute biological events and support better decisions by federal agency partners and the agencies of state, local, and tribal governments. It does this through the rapid identification, characterization, localization, and tracking of biological events worldwide (whether they occur in the human, animal, plant, or environmental realms) that may have an impact on the U.S. homeland. During the spring of 2013 there were human disease outbreaks caused by two emerging novel viruses: Avian Influenza A (H7N9) virus in China and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) in multiple countries in the Middle East and Europe. During these two events NBIC leveraged its expertise in enhancing collaboration and shared situational awareness among federal agencies.
Objective
To demonstrate NBIC's innovative approach in facilitating information sharing among U.S. federal agencies during the recent outbreaks of H7N9 influenza and MERS-CoV.