Biological, Radioactive and Chemical Threat Response Service

The Biological, Radioactive and Chemical Threat Response Service (Arabic: خدمة استجابة التهديد البيولوجي والنووي والكيميائي khidmat istijābat at-tahdīd al-biyūlūjī wan-nūwī wal-kīmiyā’ī), colloquially known as the Bioradiochemical Service (Arabic: الخدمة البيونوكميائية al-khidmah al-biyūnūkmiyā’īyah), is an agency of the federal government of the Arab Union. It is subordinate to the Main Directorate of Emergency Management under the Ministry of Health. The agency was founded in autumn 1996 by Dr. Mahmoud Jabbour, following the passing of the Biological, Radioactive and Chemical Materials Control and Safety Act by the Arab Congress earlier that year.

The agency is responsible for developing and perfecting a rapidly-implementable nationwide response to an accidental or deliberate outbreak of a biological, chemical, or radioactive threat. Biological threats include potential or real pandemics, contamination by a spill of biologically hazardous materials or medical waste, and casualties of attacks using biological weapons; chemical threats include contamination by toxic chemical materials/agents, and chemical weapons attack casualties; and radioactive threats include fallout from nuclear reactor meltdown (civilian or military), and casualties from nuclear attacks. Each speciality is handled by a dedicated agency department; in addition to a department's primary responsibility of limiting as much as possible human casualties and the scale of environmental impact, each department is also responsible for reviewing its practices with the object of eliminating shortcomings and refining emergency response practices in their respective area of operation.

The entire Main Directorate of Emergency Management including all subordinate hierarchy is civilian in nature, including the Bioradiochemical Service; however, the Bioradiochemical Service maintains a unique operational relationship with the military forces of the Arab Union, namely the Bioradiochemical Weapons Division (BWD) of the Arab Air Force's Special Expeditionary Force. The BWD is tasked with maintaining and supporting the tactical and strategic use of the Arab Union's arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons; its close relationship with the Bioradiochemical Service primarily involves the sharing of expertise on these categories of weapon, namely their nature, capabilities and the implications of their use on the battlefield, and also manifests itself in the form of the Bioradiochemical Joint Policy Group, a committee composed of both civilian and military experts on chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, which through shared knowledge and the commissioning of research projects acts as the most trusted academic advisor to the federal government on matters relating to such weapons and their use and misuse.

Although the Bioradiochemical Service was established primarily to effectively respond to man-made biological, radioactive or chemical disasters, whether intentional (such as a military attack) or accidental (such as a spill or leak), it does take on related responsibilities. For example, during the outbreak of the COVID-19 flu pandemic at the start of 2020, the Bioradiochemical Service's Biological Department worked alongside the Directorate for Disease Control and National Health Authority in implementing the union-wide response effort, primarily via mass testing and tracing protocols, quarantines of infected individuals, development of policy recommendations for federal and republican governments, and the establishment of research programs aimed at the development of improved COVID-19 treatment, a cure and a vaccine.