The OIE-FAO-INTERPOL “Building resilience against agro-terrorism and agro-crime” project
The international “Building resilience against agro-terrorism and agro-crime” Project launched in 2019 aims to sustainably increase global resilience against animal health emergencies arising from agro-terrorism and agro-crime by improving coordination between the animal health and law enforcement sector. The project is focusing on the priority regions of the Middle East, North Africa, and South East Asia where previous work of the three organizations identified gaps in various aspects of emergency management that may make them vulnerable to emergencies resulting from agro-crime and agro-terrorism(22). The first phase of the project focuses on evaluating the current capacity of target regions and seeking to find innovative and sustainable solutions to emergency management. Using this evidence, a second phase of trainings, including the development of fit-for-purpose guidance, tools, and workshops, will be implemented followed by a third phase that will use both regional simulation exercises and a large international simulation exercise to challenge and test the lessons learned and the efficiency of international cooperation.
Lastly, through a continuous coordination and communication phase, project outputs will be shared and used to produce communications and advocacy material to encourage veterinary and law enforcement collaboration. The project will culminate with a global conference on animal health and welfare emergency management to review and share lessons learned and knowledge acquired and rally support from the international community for an all-hazards and multi-sectoral approach to emergency management (20).
To evaluate needs and capacities of beneficiary countries, the project will use the OIE Tool for the Evaluation of the Performance of Veterinary Services (PVS) and three FAO tools, namely the Laboratory Mapping Tool (LMT), the Good Emergency Management Practices (GEMP) and the Surveillance Evaluation Tool (SET). Relevant results of past Joint External Evaluations (JEE) lead by the World Health Organization (WHO) and of recent reports regarding biological security needs, trends and priorities by the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) will also be used when available (23). Additional questions or modules regarding agro-terrorism and agro-crime prevention, detection or response are currently being developed for the OIE PVS and the three FAO tools (LMT, GEMP and SET). The outcomes of PVS evaluations will provide a wider perspective on the current performance of veterinary services and resilience against agro-terrorism and agro-crime targeting animals, whereas the FAO SET, LMT and GEMP tools will respectively provide a more detailed evaluation of national animal disease surveillance, diagnostic and emergency preparedness capacities, respectively (24–27). The LMT Biothreat Module will be used to evaluate the capacity of veterinary laboratories involved in the handling and testing of samples from potential terrorist or criminal induced animal disease outbreaks or events. The FAO GEMP will also include an additional module to evaluate capacities and provide training to beneficiary countries on emergency management of agro-terrorism and agro-crime events. Lastly, the new Biothreat Detection Module developed for the FAO SET is the focus of this paper.
The FAO Surveillance Evaluation Tool (SET)
SET was developed in 2017 by FAO upon request from African beneficiary countries under the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). The tool’s objective is to provide countries with detailed guidance and recommendations to improve their national animal health surveillance systems. SET was adapted from the OASIS tool (“Outil d’Analyse des Systèmes de Surveillance”), developed by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) (28), and has been used in 18 countries in Africa and Asia to date (25).
SET is an Excel-based tool with 90 indicators divided into seven areas and 19 categories specific to animal disease surveillance (Figure 1). Once all 90 indicators are scored from 1 to 4,the tool automatically generates graphics depicting the system’s strengths and weaknesses (Figure 2).Scoring is based on information obtained from interviews with stakeholders from central, subnational and field levels of the surveillance system as well as a thorough review of relevant documentation (e.g. surveillance plans, protocols, legislation, etc.). This is done during the first week of 12-day mission in the target country. Stakeholders vary among countries but generally include a veterinary service’s epidemiology unit, field veterinary officers, veterinary laboratories, VPPs and CAHWS, multi-sectoral partners (e.g. Ministry of Health, Ministry of Environment/Wildlife, One Health platforms), the private sector, border inspection posts, slaughterhouses, markets and more. These stakeholders are identified in close collaboration with veterinary services focal points during the preparatory phase which usually begins one month before the mission itself. It is also during the preparatory phase that the evaluation teams which include SET experts and focal points from national veterinary services are formed.
During the second week of the mission, evaluators score all 90 indicators, analyze the graphical outputs and conduct an in-depth analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) of the country’s surveillance system. The SWOT analysis results are then used to guide the development of recommendations that are specific, measurable, achievable, locally relevant and have realistic timelines. At the end of the mission, the results and recommendations are presented to decision-makers for feedback and a report is drafted. The report, which includes a detailed action plan to improve the country’s animal health surveillance system, is usually finalized around 60 days after the mission and posted online once cleared by the country’s Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) (25).
The SET Biothreat Detection Module
Given the importance of strong surveillance systems in the preparedness and response to agro-terrorism and agro-crime, the OIE-FAO-INTERPOL consortium decided to use SET to obtain a detailed understanding of the beneficiary countries´ animal health surveillance systems. However, the surveillance of potential deliberate animal disease outbreaks, particularly the investigation of these events, require additional coordination and activities beyond that of routine surveillance, such as forensic investigation, forensic sampling and testing, proper chain-of-custody processing, among others (7). Therefore, a specific Biothreat Detection Module was developed to be used within SET in order to assess the capacity of countries to detect unusual animal health events that are indicative of agro-terrorism or agro-crime. The Biothreat Detection Module consists of a list of additional indicators that can be used by interested countries in addition to the core SET indicators during an evaluation mission.
The Module was developed by animal health and law enforcement experts from FAO, OIE and INTERPOL with a background in epidemiological surveillance, animal health emergencies, veterinary diagnostics and biothreat reduction. An initial draft was developed between March and May 2020 based on an extensive literature review of more than 50 documents including international and national strategies and guidelines, workshop reports, peer-reviewed articles, legislation, international conventions and more. The draft was then reviewed by 14 biothreat reduction experts with different technical and geographic backgrounds (Figure 3) between July and September 2020. The module is currently expected to be piloted and finalized in early 2021.
The module includes 32 indicators related to the surveillance of potential deliberate animal disease outbreaks, including their investigation. Similar to SET, the indicators are scored from 1 to 4 based on the country’s capacity. Scoring is based on interviews of relevant stakeholders and on the review of relevant documents related to the surveillance of agro-terrorism and agro-crime against animal health. These stakeholders may include law enforcement authorities, customs, military forces, bioterrorism or agro-terrorism focal points in veterinary services and other inter-sectoral partners, laboratories handling and testing samples from suspected deliberate animal health events, among others. Additional relevant documents may include legislation and strategies to counter agroterrorism or agro-crime, joint criminal and epidemiologic investigation guidelines, memoranda of understanding between veterinary services and law enforcement, lists of pathogens and toxins of concern for agro-terrorism and agro-crime, among others.
Once all 32 indicators are scored, the module automatically generates a spider graph of the country’s strengths and weaknesses in the detection of biological threats (Figure 2). This graphical output may then be used to develop recommendations to improve national surveillance of agro-terrorism and agro-crime events. Similar to SET, recommendations will be developed using the SMART approach (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound). For this, the recommendations will be prioritized into short, medium and long-term and detailed in an action plan for improvement of animal health agro-terrorism and agro-crime surveillance.
The 32 indicators of the SET Biothreat Detection Module are divided into 7 categories, namely Institutional Organization, Laboratory, Surveillance, Risk Assessment, Workforce, Data Management and Evaluation. The following sections describe the requirements for effective surveillance of suspected deliberate animal disease outbreaks and how national capacities to implement these activities are evaluated by the SET Biothreat Detection Module.
Institutional organization category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module
The timely exchange of information between animal health and law enforcement agencies is critical to contain the spread of disease and apprehend the perpetrators in a deliberate outbreak. However, several factors may delay the exchange of information including hesitancy to share information due to its sensitivity, legal barriers, and lack of awareness and guidance on how to collaborate. Lack of clear guidance on: leadership for response activities when terrorist or criminal event targeting animals is suspected or confirmed, the role and responsibilities of each entity involved, the appropriate communication lines to be followed as well as outreach to the public may cause an overlap of efforts, waste of resources, delayed detection of the outbreak source and identification of the perpetrators leading to an overall inefficient response (14,29,30) .
Thus, the institutional organization category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module evaluates the factors that would create an enabling environment for intersectoral collaboration and efficient detection of potential deliberate animal disease outbreaks. This includes the existence of committees to discuss, develop and review strategies and plans related to agro-terrorism or surveillance based on national needs and threats. It also includes the existence of a formal framework which outlines the organization and operation of surveillance activities for the detection of potential deliberate animal health events, the existence of focal points and mechanisms for national and international inter-sectoral collaboration particularly between animal health and law enforcement agencies, and the existence of sufficient resources.
Laboratory category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module
Initially, veterinary services and law enforcement have the common aim of identifying the causative agent and source of a potentially deliberate outbreak using similar methods. However, the end goal of law enforcement is to determine who committed the criminal offence and bring them to prosecution. To this end, law enforcement agencies use biological and other conventional evidence to build a case for attribution to a specific source and identify perpetrators, partners in crime and victims. Exploitation of criminal evidence may require forensic methods that delve deeper into the characterization of the pathogen and specific processing methods. These methods must be standardized, validated and meet standards for its results to be accepted as evidence in court (31). Yet, not all forensic laboratories have the necessary equipment for processing and testing animal pathogens and biological toxins while not all veterinary or public health laboratories can perform the necessary forensic analysis of conventional evidence (fingerprints, DNA, etc.). Therefore, mechanisms need to be in place to meet the needs of both the animal health and law enforcement sectors in a joint investigation (30,32). This may be done by establishing a network of laboratories across the animal health, law enforcement and other sectors such as public health laboratories that have the necessary expertise and meet the required standards to conduct the appropriate diagnostic and forensic analysis. These networks were established along the XXI century in a few countries.(14,30,33) Nevertheless, countries should at a minimum be aware of national and international laboratory capabilities across animal health, public health and forensic sectors. Based on this, national plans can be developed, and collaboration agreements established. It is worth noting that these plans should also include mechanisms for increasing laboratory capacity to meet surge demands in case of a nationwide emergency (32).
Moreover, for laboratory results to be accepted as evidence in court, laboratories and field agents must comply with specific chain of custody procedures (31). These practices ensure the integrity of evidence, demonstrate that evidence has been handled properly at all times and that no misconduct or tampering took place, and include a chronological documentation (32). Thus, chain of custody must be maintained and documented from the collection, packaging, handling, and transport of samples, to their arrival, analysis, storage and disposal, to the drafting and reporting of laboratory results in court (31–33).
The existence of national mechanisms to meet epidemiologic and forensic laboratory needs during a potentially deliberate animal disease outbreak and the availability of guidelines on proper sample collection, transport, handling and preservation for diagnostic and criminal investigation purposes are evaluated in the laboratory category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module. The module also addresses the availability of sufficient resources in relevant laboratories and the percentage of laboratories with information systems. These information systems are important for evidence tracing, chain of custody maintenance and for timely sharing of laboratory results(33). Finally, the laboratory category verifies the capacity of the country to differentiate foreign, emerging or manipulated pathogens from those that are already circulating in the country. This would require knowledge on the epidemiological situation of animal diseases in the country as well as access to technologies and expertise for pathogen characterization such as genetic sequencing (13,33). While SET and its Biothreat Detection Module focus on the general capacity of laboratory networks, once developed the LMT Biothreat Module will provide valuable details on the specific capacities of veterinary laboratories which can complement SET results with a more complete picture of national diagnostic capacities.
Surveillance category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module
Any animal disease surveillance system relies on farmers, private veterinarians, VPP, laboratories, CAHWs and other data sources to report disease events. The additional challenge for the detection of deliberate animal health events is that many classic bioterrorism or agro-terrorism pathogens are rare, non-endemic or eradicated. Therefore, the detection should also rely on the capacity of animal health professionals to recognize eradicated or exotic diseases of high risk for agro-terrorism or agro-crime (9,13,14,30). In light of this, the SET Biothreat Detection Module includes an indicator verifying the existence of awareness building programs to inform these data sources on relevant exotic and eradicated diseases based on the country’s risk situation.
Early response to deliberate outbreaks also requires law enforcement and animal health authorities to share information and collaborate. Sharing of information even before confirming suspicions of a deliberate outbreak can be crucial in the identification of the source, control of the spread of disease and apprehension of the perpetrator. However, information sharing and collaboration between sectors for all outbreaks would be overly burdensome and unnecessary(14,29,30). To address this challenge, a few countries and authors have proposed the development of a list of triggers that should prompt animal health and law enforcement authorities to collaborate (29,30,32,34,35). Among the possible triggers suggested by authors is the detection of a disease with an unusual geographic, host or seasonal distribution or with an unusual presentation. For this to be noted, animal health authorities must be aware of the epidemiologic distribution of the diseases circulating in the country and the region. This includes information on the temporal, geographic and host distribution of pathogens and toxins as well as their characteristics such as antigenic variants and genetic sequencing (29,30,32). However, countries may not have enough resources to regularly collect data on all animal pathogens and toxins. A commonly used method to prioritize efforts is to focus on a list of pathogens and toxins of concern for agro-terrorism and agro-crime based on the country’s context and threat landscape that is regularly reviewed and updated. Examples include the List of Select Agents and Toxins of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Australia Group Common Control List of Human and Animal Pathogens and Toxins (36,37). The existence of such a list of pathogens and toxins of concern, the country´s knowledge on the epidemiological situation of these pathogens and toxins of concern, and the existence of a list of triggers for information sharing are also evaluated under the surveillance category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module.
The module also verifies the existence of guidelines or protocols for information sharing between law enforcement and veterinary services. This is important to allow for the safe exchange of information and to overcome potential barriers to the exchange such as legal restrictions(32). Moreover, when triggers are met, it is advisable for law enforcement and animal health authorities to quickly verify the suspicion in order to avoid unnecessary use of resources in response to a hoax or false alarm (29,30). The module also assesses the existence and implementation of protocols to verify the credibility of a possible agro-crime or agro-terrorism threat as well as the reporting timeliness between sectors of unusual events.
Moreover, disease surveillance at entry points of a country, such as airports, ports, border posts, bus stations and postal services, are crucial for preventing the accidental or deliberate entry of diseases in a country (12). Therefore, the surveillance category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module evaluates the existence of strategies and plans for cross-border surveillance and the capacity of points of entry to conduct surveillance.
Once a suspected deliberate animal disease outbreak is considered a credible threat, it is usually advisable to conduct a joint epidemiologic and criminal investigation between animal health and law enforcement authorities(29,30,32). Depending on the outbreak, other sectors may be included such as public health authorities when the outbreak involves a zoonotic disease or environmental authorities when it involves wildlife. Although it is recommended for authorities to agree on actions on a case-by-case basis, general guidelines can provide an initial understanding on how to proceed including where, how and who to include in the investigation, how to conduct interviews, how to communicate with farmers, the public and all those along the relevant livestock value chain, and key principles in outbreak investigation and criminal investigation procedures (e.g. sample collection, biosafety and biosecurity procedures, chain of custody procedures, etc.) (29,30,32). Therefore, the existence of joint criminal and epidemiologic investigation guidelines for animal health events is also assessed by the module.
Risk assessment category
In this category, the module verifies whether the country regularly conducts joint risk assessments for potential agro-terrorism and agro-crime threats involving all relevant stakeholders. The module also verifies whether all the minimum components of a risk assessment are done, and if the results are used in risk management to inform strategies, plans, lists of pathogens and toxins of concern and other relevant documents in the detection of agro-terrorism and agro-crime. These assessments are important in prioritizing efforts in the detection of agro-terrorism and agro-crime(32).
Workforce category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module
One of the factors affecting the surveillance of agro-terrorism is the availability of staff with the necessary training and expertise (21,32). In the workforce category, the SET Biothreat Detection Module verifies the existence of staff planning and a roster of investigators for the surveillance and investigation of suspected or confirmed deliberate outbreaks. The module also evaluates the existence of trainings for relevant staff of the animal health, law enforcement and other relevant entities on the detection, reporting and investigation of potential or confirmed deliberate animal disease outbreak. This category also addresses the existence of mechanisms to avoid information concealment, the sharing of false information or the misuse of information by animal health, law enforcement or other staff.
Data management category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module
The loss, theft or misuse of information could jeopardize criminal investigations and place the country at risk. Ill-intended actors could use the information for several nefarious ends (29,30,32). As such, the category of data management was created to include indicators assessing the existence of mechanism to prevent the theft, loss or misuse of surveillance data and information.
Evaluation category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module
In general, simulation exercises are done to test, evaluate, and refine plans and protocols. Joint simulation exercises and trainings between animal health, law enforcement and other relevant entities on important surveillance and joint investigation plans and protocols also build relationships between the sectors and allow staff to gain familiarity and expertise with the principles and methods of the detection of deliberate animal disease outbreaks (29,30,32). The evaluation category of the SET Biothreat Detection Module assesses whether countries regularly conduct simulation exercises with all relevant staff of law enforcement, animal health and other pertinent sectors as well as after action reviews (AAR) following an actual event or exercises. The module also verifies if these joint exercises and AARs lead to corrective measures to improve the detection of agro-terrorism and agro-crime.