Microbiological Risk Assessment : An Interim Report Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens

Risk asessment is an area of increasing public interest, especially where it impinges upon health and prosperity.

Recent outbreaks of the plague in India, Ebola virus in Zaire, and the HIV virus world-wide, have heightened the debate about how microbiological risks are identified and quantified, as well as how the principles of risk based approaches should influence policy-making.

There is a need to ensure that current and future microbiological hazards are managed against the background of sound knowledge of risk.

Against this broad canvas, the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens was asked to consider the general principles of microbiological risk assessment and its application to public health issues with a particular reference to information requirements and recommendations for further research and surveillance, and to provide a report.