THE United States government, through the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Cooperative Threat Reduction (DTRA CTR) Program, held a series of meetings from July 27 to August 2 with the Philippine government to discuss current and future biological threat reduction and chemical security capacity-building initiatives in the country.

DTRA representatives met officials of the Department of Health, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Science and Technology, and the Department of the Interior and Local Government for an exchange on a five-year biological threat reduction and chemical security capacity-building program, the development of a subnational level laboratory network and potential future training opportunities on chemical security and biorisk management. Over the next five years, the CTR Program would support activities to enhance interagency systems, communication and other capabilities to prepare the Philippines to prevent, detect, track, report, respond to and secure biothreat agents and chemicals of security concern.