User:RelentlessRecusant/UNSC Special Pathogens Section

The UNSC Special Pathogens Section (SpecPath) is a prominent UNSC epidemiology and public health division under the joint command and funding of both the UNSC Department of Biological Warfare (UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence, Section Three) and the UNSC Medical Corps. It is responsible for active epidemiology to track, correlate, and analyze incidences of novel or highly virulent pathogens, and to respond immediately to confirmed outbreaks of such pathogens.

It is armed primarily in a public health and epidemiological perspective, and field investigators of the Special Pathogens Section typically travel to the epicenter of outbreaks, using UNSC Medical Corps authority to restate the public health chain-of-command and beginning to compile field epidemiological studies to analyze the probable origin and propogative vectors of the pathogen, to identify the pathogen, and to calculate probable implications and possibilities for further spread. When the threat is fully analyzed and the transmitting pathogen identified, SpecPath is responsible for the oversight of distribution of pharmacological counteragents from their distributors to the patients, and for the oversight of clinical treatment. Thus, SpecPath acts in a passive public health role, fitting with MEDCORPS's role and function. BIOWAR is involved because of their expertise in handling and managing virulent micro-organisms, and certain MEDCORPS officers report that ONI officers subtly enter the scene and "sample" the novel or virulent pathogen, for unknown purposes. Some civilians speculate that SpecPath acts as a fertile biological WMD breeding ground for BIOWAR, almost in a "pathocognosy" capacity, allowing ONI to investigate any novel pathogens that appear and to assess their virulence for unnamed purposes.

Behind the Scenes

 * The UNSC Special Pathogens Section's name, function, and purpose is inspired by the real-world U.S. CDC Special Pathogens Branch, which has been instrumental in research on viral hemorrhagic fevers, particularly Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa.