Medical Countermeasures Consortium
The Medical Countermeasures Consortium is a four-nation partnership involving the Defence and Health Departments of Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States.
The Consortium seeks to develop medical countermeasures to assist with all-hazard preparedness and response for the participant countries. The emphasis of the Consortium is on chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) threats affecting civilian and military populations and on emerging infectious diseases and pandemics.
Medical countermeasures include drugs, vaccines and diagnostics (devices and materials). Success in delivering these measures has broader implications affecting biosurveillance, force health protection and global health security.
Australian Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
Within Australia, official support for the Medical Countermeasures Consortium began in late 2012 with the signing of a national memorandum of understanding (MOU). The signatories to the MOU comprise the Department of Health and Ageing (represented by the Office of Health Protection) and the Department of Defence (represented by DST and Joint Health Command).
The strategic drivers of the Medical Countermeasures Consortium have been defined by the traditional issues associated with medical countermeasure development and include burden sharing, non traditional development methods and overcoming the strategy gap.
