Government Says Fully Prepared To Respond To Any Biological Attacks

There are no specific inputs available with the Union home ministry regarding any threat of biological attacks at present, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Wednesday.

In response to a written question, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai said the government is fully prepared to respond to any biological attacks on the country.

“In order to effectively respond to any such crises or disasters, Standard Operating Procedures have been formulated. In addition, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has published guidelines on biological disasters, including bio-warfare and bio-terrorism,” he said.

The minister said the guidelines have identified the bio-warfare and bio-terrorism agents, characteristics of these agents, epidemiological clues to identify outbreak of disease caused by them, laboratory identification and their management, including prevention and treatment.

“The battalions of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have also been trained to deal with such crises,” he said.

The minister said as health is a State subject, the primary responsibility of detecting and responding to biological events of national concerns vests with the state government.

The minister said the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), being the nodal ministry for biological disasters, has a crisis management plan for such disasters which was last updated on October 2023 and shared with the stakeholders concerned.

The ministry has also shared Model Crisis Management Plans for biological disasters to all states and Union territories to serve as a template for the preparation of their respective crisis management plans, he said.

“MoHFW supports the State with guidance, outbreak investigation, laboratory diagnosis, advising on appropriate public health measures and providing logistics support in terms of human and material resources, wherever required,” Nityanand Rai said.