Zoonotic Diseases, Bioterrorism and Data Security

Introduction

Zoonotic diseases are infectious diseases that can spread between animals and humans. They are caused by viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi that can be transmitted directly or indirectly from animals to humans. Some major zoonotic diseases include rabies, Ebola, avian influenza, and salmonellosis. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the threats posed by zoonotic diseases to global public health and economies. Besides naturally occurring zoonotic diseases, there are growing concerns that zoonotic pathogens could potentially be used as bioterrorism agents. This article provides an overview of the connections between zoonotic diseases, bioterrorism threats, and the importance of data security in this context.

Zoonotic Diseases – An Overview

Some key facts about zoonotic diseases:

• At least 60% of existing human infectious diseases are zoonotic in origin. This includes major diseases like COVID-19, Ebola, HIV/AIDS, influenza, rabies, and plague.

• Almost 75% of recently emerging infectious diseases affecting humans are zoonotic. Examples include Zika virus, West Nile virus, and hantaviruses.

• Zoonotic diseases can spread to humans through direct contact with infected animals, vectors like mosquitoes and ticks, contaminated food or water, or environmental sources.

• The most common zoonotic viruses are rabies lyssavirus, Australian bat lyssavirus, Nipah virus, Ebola virus, Marburg virus, Lassa fever virus, hantaviruses, and arboviruses like dengue, yellow fever, West Nile, and Zika viruses.

• Major zoonotic bacterial diseases include anthrax, brucellosis, leptospirosis, plague, Q fever, salmonellosis, and Lyme disease.

• Parasitic zoonoses like cryptosporidiosis, toxoplasmosis, and trichinellosis are also important.

Zoonotic Diseases as Potential Bioterrorism Agents

Bioterrorism refers to the deliberate release of dangerous biological agents like viruses, bacteria or toxins to cause illness or death in humans, animals or plants. Zoonotic pathogens could potentially be used as bioterrorism weapons because:

• Many zoonotic agents like anthrax and plague bacteria, Ebola, Marburg, Nipah, and hantaviruses, are already classified as Category A bioterrorism agents by the CDC based on their capacity to pose a major public health impact and terror.

• Zoonotic viruses and bacteria can be relatively easily isolated from animal hosts like bats, rodents, and livestock animals and grown in bulk using cell culture or microbial techniques.

• These pathogens can then be transformed into bioweapons for aerosol spraying or contaminating food and water supplies. The resulting outbreaks can cause significant disease, fatalities, social disruption, and economic damage.

• Natural zoonotic outbreaks can also be misused to extract samples and conduct bioengineering to increase pathogen virulence, transmissibility or resistance before weaponizing them.

Historically, zoonotic agents like anthrax and plague bacteria have been developed as bioweapons by some state programs. Naturally occurring zoonotic outbreaks have also been implicated in terrorism, like the deliberate spread of anthrax spores via mailed letters in the USA in 2001. Recent advances in genetic engineering and synthetic biology have further increased concerns about dual-use risks of zoonotic pathogens as bioweapons.

Surveillance, Data Collection and Sharing

Effective surveillance, data collection, and sharing on zoonotic diseases is crucial for their prevention, early outbreak detection, rapid response, and mitigation of bioterrorism risks. Some key measures needed:

• Improved wildlife health monitoring to detect spillover of novel zoonoses from animal reservoirs. This requires extensive wildlife field sampling, testing, and data analysis.

• Expanded livestock disease surveillance including on-farm sampling, testing and genomic characterization of pathogens.

• Robust human disease reporting and screening systems to identify initial zoonotic outbreaks and transmission clusters. Requires extensive lab testing capacity and health data collection.

• Timely data sharing between governments, public health agencies, and international bodies like WHO, OIE and FAO for risk assessment and coordinated action.

• Increased biosafety and biosecurity protocols in research labs handling dangerous zoonotic pathogens to prevent accidental or deliberate releases.

• Databases of vaccine and drug targets against high-risk zoonoses to enable rapid response to outbreaks and bioterror attacks.

• Real-time genetic tracking of pathogens involved in outbreaks to identify emergence of new viral strains or bioengineered characteristics.

The Vital Importance of Data Security

However, the collection of surveillance data on zoonotic diseases also raises biosecurity issues. Sensitive data on the genetics, transmission, diagnostics and treatment of dangerous zoonotic agents could potentially enable their misuse as bioweapons. Data security is therefore vital to prevent unauthorized or malicious access to sensitive information that could aid bioterrorism. Key data security measures would include:

• Classifying levels of data confidentiality based on biosecurity risks and restricting access to authorized users only.

• Encryption of highly sensitive datasets involved in zoonotic disease research and surveillance.

• Secure data transfer protocols like blockchain-based systems for sharing confidential data between health agencies.

• Cybersecurity training for personnel handling zoonotic disease databases to prevent phishing and hacking.

• Monitoring of database access to detect abnormal usage patterns that could signal infiltration.

• Contingency planning for emergency database lockdown in response to potential biosecurity breaches or threats.

Balancing open data sharing for outbreak protection against misuse risks is crucial. Measures like differential access controls, cryptographic systems, and cyber-surveillance need to be implemented for secure data management without obstructing timely data dissemination and action.

Conclusion

In summary, zoonotic diseases pose major risks from both natural outbreaks and potential bioterrorism. Rapid identification, reporting, characterization and coordinated mitigation efforts are crucial, enabled by extensive surveillance and data sharing between human health, animal health and wildlife agencies. However, the biosecurity risks inherent in such sensitive data also necessitate appropriate information security measures. Achieving this balance will be vital for global health security in the face of emerging zoonotic disease threats.