The 2018 National Biodefence Strategy was released in September 2018 to put in place a single coordinated effort across the U.S. government to addresses biological threats, including those that are naturally occurring (such as infectious diseases), deliberate (such as biological weapons), or accidental (such as failure of biocontainment). Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will lead the Biodefense Steering Committee which will implement the polices listed in the National Biodefense Strategy. The five goals of the strategy are to:

1. Enable risk awareness to inform decision-making across the biodefence enterprise

2. Ensure biodefense enterprise capabilities to prevent bioincidents

3. Ensure biodefense enterprise preparedness to reduce the impacts of bioincidents

4. Rapidly respond to limit the impacts of bioincidents

5. Facilitate recovery to restore the community, the economy, and the environment after a bioincidents