GAO says US has been Slow to Implement Biosurveillance Strategy

July 15, 2015 — 

The Obama administration has been slow to take recommended and promised steps toward a coordinated national biosurveillance strategy, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released yesterday. [Source: GAO report, July 8]

Following an earlier GAO recommendation, the administration released its National Strategy for Biosurveillance in July 2012, the report notes. The White House was to issue an implementation plan within 120 days of that, but it still had not done so as of last month, the GAO said.

The GAO, Congress's investigative arm, also faulted the administration's efforts on food and agriculture disease surveillance.

The report noted that in 2011 the GAO said the administration lacked coordination of efforts to implement the national food and agriculture defense policy, spelled out in Homeland Security Presidential Directive 9 (HSPD-9), which includes food and agriculture disease surveillance. In addition, the GAO said the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) had no overall strategy for handling its HSPD-9 responsibilities.

Since then, the National Security Council has begun holding interagency meetings on HSPD-9 measures, and a report on the activities is expected this summer, the GAO reported. It said that by February of this year the USDA had analyzed its HSPD-9 efforts but had not developed an overall strategy.

The GAO also said the USDA's Animal and Plant Health inspection Service (APHIS) has broadened its disease surveillance program but has made only limited progress on aligning the program with overall national biosurveillance efforts.