title: Investigating disease outbreaks under a protocol to the biological and toxin weapons convention.
abstract: The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention prohibits the development, production, and stockpiling of biological weapons agents or delivery devices for anything other than peaceful purposes. A protocol currently in the final stages of negotiation adds verification measures to the convention. One of these measures will be international investigation of disease outbreaks that suggest a violation of the convention, i.e., outbreaks that may be caused by use of biological weapons or release of harmful agents from a facility conducting prohibited work. Adding verification measures to the current Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention will affect the international public health and epidemiology communities; therefore, active involvement of these communities in planning the implementation details of the protocol will be important.
authors.affiliation: University of California, Davis, California, USA. mlwheelis@ucdavis.edu
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wheelis
mesh_terms: D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D006801:Humans; D011634:Public Health