BIOLOGICAL THREATS OF NATURAL ORIGIN IN TODAY’S SAFETY SPACE – AN ATTEMPT AT SYSTEMIZATION

Abstract

Biological threats belong to this category of threats that can have negative effects on the health and life of humans, animals or plants, on a massive scale. We are experiencing this, for example, in the ongoing pandemics of AIDS and COVID-19 in the world. Knowledge about the above categories of threats is interdisciplinary and dispersed. Currently, at least in Poland, there are no scientific studies that would comprehensively define their essence, classify them and present them in a way that would constitute the basis for the improvement of public security systems. In this article, the author attempts to define and classify the above category of threats in the light of scientific literature and laws which are in force in Poland. He also presents a short description of individual biological threats derived from nature itself, while signalling that their perpetrators may be people who, through deliberate actions (military actions with the use of biological weapons, bioterrorist actions) or unintentional actions (industrial failures, accidents), may contribute to the emergence of disease epidemics for which we do not have the appropriate medicines or vaccines.