Deploy to Diagnose: Enhancing Pandemic Preparedness With NATO Field Lab Capabilities

Area of Science:

• Military medicine
• Infectious disease surveillance
• Laboratory science

Background:

• Laboratory testing is crucial for pandemic preparedness, but deployable assets often lack high-throughput capabilities for large outbreaks.
• Validating field laboratory capabilities requires careful planning and execution.
• The Clean Care 2024 (CC24) exercise provided a live training environment for multinational Task Force Lab operations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To outline the setup, execution, challenges, and lessons learned from the multinational Task Force Lab at the CC24 NATO training exercise.
• To assess the feasibility of high-throughput microbiological testing in a deployed setting.
• To evaluate the performance of integrated laboratory capabilities during a simulated outbreak.

Main Methods:

• A simulated morbillivirus outbreak with pre-prepared nasopharyngeal swab samples was conducted during CC24.
• Task Force Lab processed samples to evaluate accuracy and turnaround times.
• Endemic disease surveillance and foodborne outbreak testing were also performed, with statistical analysis of performance metrics.

Main Results:

• Four microbiology laboratories processed 891 samples during the exercise.
• Two partner laboratories achieved 98% accuracy in testing 825 simulated outbreak samples.
• Integrated command-and-control functions ensured efficient sample distribution and results reporting.

Conclusions:

• Task Force Lab successfully demonstrated high-throughput microbiological testing in a deployed operational setting.
• The exercise provided a valuable framework for future real-world operations and training.
• Lessons learned will inform improvements in deployed laboratory capabilities for pandemic response.