Lt Gen (retd) J R Bharadwaj, former Director General Armed Forces Medical Service and also a former member of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said although different arms of the government are working to deal with the threat, a lot more needs to be done.
Bharadwaj said guidelines to deal with the problem were issued by NDMA in 2007 and these were even appreciated by other nations, he said.
Tracing the history of bio-medical warfare, Bharadwaj said Germans had used anthrax in the First World War while the Japanese had a battery of agents like cholera, plague, chickenpox.
"There has to be a better coordination between the different arms of the government. The agents that can be used for bio-terrorism need to be defined to ensure preparedness. Of over 600 districts in India only 100 districts have Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme(IDSP) laboratories," he said.
Bharadwaj, however, added that the Ministry of Health has been taking steps to deal with the issue.
He said the database, which would include surveys done on epidemics, can help identify if there is something amiss in case of an outbreak.
Selvamuthry also emphasised on making the best use of the bio-diversity, especially in the Western ghats while coming up with medicines to deal with the issue.
Talking about the economic implications of bio-terrorism, Jesper Elsgaard, Vice-President of Bavarian Nordic, a Denmark based company said post 9/11, twelve people were killed due to anthrax.