• Recent national and international health emergencies have shown that appropriate responses require multidisciplinary intervention, where the moment of planning must be shared by decision makers and the moment of action must be known before the occurrence of the event.

• The extraordinary nature of a global health emergency is capable of overwhelming the usual response capabilities of a tried and tested system, and cannot be addressed without the preparation of a specific plan.

We need to rethink the redistribution of specific areas, personnel, equipment and technology.

It is necessary to reset the health protocols that involve not only the corporate health structures but the whole national territory.

Managing a biohazard emergency means putting in place a unique and effective coordination in a very short time with the available resources, and with the organisational flexibility useful to avoid being trapped in a rigid and irreconcilable planning with the variability of events.

The risk cannot be eliminated by any human activity, however it can be studied, evaluated and, after having traced it back to the various parameters of the reference area, made predictable and manageable, resulting in its neutralisation.

For a high biocontainment management system to be virtuous, it needs three characteristics:

• Security treatment of patients;
• Surety reliability, guarantee of operation in a highly complex and critical environment;
• Safety protection of operators.

For a high biocontainment management system to be virtuous, it needs three characteristics:

The standardised biocontainment procedures have proved to be a supporting component of biological risk management which has fulfilled the purpose of isolating one or more infected sources, in order to reduce the possibility of their spread and potential exposure of operators and infrastructures.