Countermeasures against bioterrorism have increased since September 11 and anthrax attacks in the United States of America in 2001. The “Strategy to Make Japan the Safest Country in the World” was approved by the Cabinet in 2013. Strengthening countermeasures against naturally-occurring infectious disease outbreaks implies strengthening countermeasures against bioterrorism; however, the latter bears particular challenges. One of these challenges is the approval of counter-terrorism therapeutic or prophylactic agents, since the use of these agents is rare. To move up the market for innovative drug candidates, the “SAKIGAKE” designation scheme was introduced on a pilot basis by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2015. It is hoped that this scheme will be also applicable for counter-terrorism agents.

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A new commercial rapid diagnostic test for 10-min for adenovirus (ADV) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is now available for rapid diagnosis. The sensitivity and the specificity of these rapid diagnostic tests were compared to real-time PCR which is a “golden standard” for detecting ADV and RSV. Here, we assessed the 150 of real-time PCRpositive samples for ADV and 100 for RSV, and 81 (54%) and 63 (63%) of them were positive with rapid diagnostic test, respectively. The sensitivity of the rapid diagnostic test was 54% for ADV and 63.0% for RSV. Accordingly, the samples showing over 30 Ct in real-time PCR were detected by the ADV rapid diagnostic test and over 24 Ct by the RSV rapid diagnostic test. These results indicated that these test kits performed well enough to be used for rapid diagnosis of patients infected with ADV and RSV after 10- min with simple step.

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Less than 2 years after graduating from a medical school, I worked in Ethiopia for the smallpox eradication program under WHO. My work was to find out infected villages, and give vaccination to uninfected children. People there lived in rocky mountainous areas with extreme poverty. The experiences were so tough that it has left a permanent ‘scar’ in my brain which influences my behavior/decision thereafter. Then I worked with WHO for a filariasis program in Samoa. I learned a lot and influenced heavily, but a bit negatively: I decided to do pure research rather than doing office work. The emotional and shocking experiences in developing countries have given me the energy which is necessary to continue arrogant ways of work in the field of tropical medicine.

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