By Cheryl Pellerin
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8, 2014 – The Defense Department agency
whose mission is to reduce biological, chemical and other threats to troops
worldwide began ramping up its response early in the Ebola outbreak and now,
with many partners, is steadily building capabilities in Liberia as it extends
capacity into Sierra Leone and Mali.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, known as DTRA, protects
the United States and its allies from chemical, biological, nuclear and other
weapons of mass destruction.
The fast-moving nature of West Africa’s Ebola crisis, which
so far accounts for 17,145 cases of Ebola virus disease and at least 6,070
deaths, according to the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, has driven the need for constant, close collaboration
within DTRA itself and among U.S. agencies, entities such as U.S. Africa
Command, international organizations and private companies.
One of Many Stakeholders
DTRA Deputy Director Air Force Maj. Gen. John P. Horner recently
spoke with DoD News about DTRA’s Ebola response in support of the U.S. Agency
for International Development, or USAID, the U.S. lead for Ebola efforts in
West Africa.
“DTRA is one of many stakeholders -- we are not necessarily
the lead for any of this,” Horner said. “But between our [research, testing,
development and evaluation] efforts and providing protective gear, diagnostic
capabilities and vaccines, to modeling and analysis and data-sharing
capabilities, we’ve made a lot of contributions” with a range of partners.
These include CDC and the Department of Health and Human
Services, the State Department’s Biosecurity Engagement Program, many other
U.S. interagency partners, and international partners that include the World
Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders.
Together, DTRA and its partners provide support to
Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa and contribute assay development and
laboratory services, funding and capacity building to fight this and future
deadly outbreaks.
In the Realm of Basic Research
Dr. Ronald K. Hann Jr., director of research and development
in the Chemical and Biological Technologies Department, described the process
for DTRA’s work on Ebola diagnostic assays.
“Here at DTRA we work in the realm of basic research up
through developing prototypes, but we aren't the ones who do the follow-on
procurement, life-cycle management or distribution,” he explained.
“We try to anticipate threats in the future and make sure we
have resources prepared to meet those threats,” Hann added.
As products progress, DTRA works directly with its DoD
acquisition partner, the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and
Biological Defense in Maryland, or with interagency partners such as the
Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, part of HHS,
and the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, or NIAID.
“We work in an early discovery role, up through prototypes,”
Hann said. “Often we’re looking to answer the question, can I do a certain
thing, not necessarily whether it’s the best or cheapest way to do it. Looking
to make something more cost efficient or how to mass produce it, those are
questions that go on to our interagency partners … who carry the product further.”
Threat Detection and Surveillance
Dr. Richard Schoske, chief of the diagnostic detection and
threat surveillance division in the Chemical and Biological Technologies
Department, described DTRA’s role in diagnostic development.
As far back as 2010, Schoske said, the agency and its
advanced developers funded and developed more than seventy assays to detect 19
different pathogens such as hemorrhagic fever viruses like Ebola and Marburg
that are both filoviruses.
The assays received pre-Emergency Use Authorization from the
Food and Drug Administration. Pre-EUA is a step toward EUA, which allows
unapproved medical products to be used in an emergency to diagnose, treat or
prevent serious diseases.
Generally, Schoske said, DTRA provides funding to the U.S.
Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, and
scientists there do further development and present packages of information
about the assays to the advanced developer -- the Joint Program Executive
Office for Chemical and Biological Defense.
Then the JPEO-CBD and DTRA’s Cooperative Biological
Engagement Program, or CBEP, partners fund the manufacturing, procurement and
distribution to analytic laboratories like the ones DTRA is putting in place in
Liberia, Schoske said.
“Those are the assays currently being used by laboratories,
in West Africa,” he added.
Labs in Sierra Leone, Assessment in Mali
Now, at Sierra Leone’s request and with CBEP funding and
DTRA’s international partners, the agency is moving two contractor-staffed
diagnostic labs into Sierra Leone and helping build capacity in that country to
deal with Ebola and other infectious diseases.
CBEP division chief Dr. Lance Brooks said the labs will go
out in stages. One is expected to be ready by the end of December and full
operating capability is expected by early January.
Also in the region, DTRA, with CDC and the State
Department’s Biosecurity Engagement Program, has sent an assessment team to
Mali, the most recent West African country affected by the Ebola epidemic.
Major General Horner said one of DTRA’s most critical
capabilities as a combat support agency is “our agility in terms of working
with our lawmakers and colleagues at the Pentagon to get money programmed and
on a contract in a hurry.”
He added, “As part of [President Barack Obama’s] Global
Health Security Agenda we will sustain our efforts and the capabilities we are
putting forward into the future as part of our medical
countermeasures-biosurveillance effort.”
Dr. Ronald Meris, branch chief for DTRA Technical Reachback,
where modeling is performed for Ebola and other infectious diseases, said, “If
we could go out on a limb I would say our modeling is showing that the U.S.
government response is making a difference in West Africa.”
He added, “I would say the rate of uptick is lower with each
bit of interdiction we do to help combat this [outbreak] and build capacity in
the countries. So I'm not going to say that it's a good news story yet but I'm
saying the response is taking hold.”
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