ECDC On Air, the podcast of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

Keeping up to date with European Epidemiology.

Welcome to ECDEC on Air, the podcast of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.

My name is Nicholas and I'm your host for today.

In this episode, I speak to Paul Riley, who is an expert in emergency preparedness and response at ECDC.

Paul is here to talk to me about the subject of bioterrorism and biosafety.

And how much of a threat this is to public health.

Thank you. to public health. So hello, Paul, nice to have you here.

Can you just start off telling us a little bit about what you do at

the CDC and what your role is in biosecurity and biosafety? Yeah, sure. So I'm a principal

expert in emergency preparedness response support. And really, my main role on my main background is

in simulation exercises, so the design and delivery of simulation exercises.

But in a previous life, I used to work at Public Health England, and that was based at a place

called Portendown. And Portendown has a long and established history of working in biosecurity and

biosafety. And so in the many years, I spent in a laboratory there, I learned an awful lot about biosecurity and biosafety. And so in many years I spent in the laboratory there, I learned

an awful lot about biosecurity and biosafety. And I bring that into the exercises and the simulation

exercises that I develop. So when we have a subject around that issue, biosecurity, I tend to

write the scenarios and help inform those exercises through my experience based in the past

when I used to work at Poldendown.

Can you explain the difference between biosecurity and biosafety?

So that's a really good question.

So some European languages don't make the distinction between biosecurity and biosafety.

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