The main purpose of this article is to delimitate the concepts of biosecurity and bioterrorism and to highlight the importance of intelligence in the decision-making process. Biosecurity and bioterrorism are two terms who can be very similar at first view, but they are very different, and they only interconnect at one point, the first one is including the second. The first term biosecurity or biological security can be simply defined as an action taken to prevent a damage from a biological threat and bioterrorism is a form of terrorism which involves the use of a biological weapon. The intelligence in relation with biosecurity and bioterrorism can be defined as a process which is producing an analysis for the organisation. Biosecurity, bioterrorism and intelligence are all interconnected, the last one is the most important because a good intelligence can reduce or even disrupt threats and emergencies by providing an effective decision-making support when is needed. Intelligence has a very important role in managing bio threats only if stakeholders such as scientists, the first responder, clinicians and others are engaged in the process of taking the decision. A good intelligence provides a very important mechanism in understanding the threat and estimating the risk for a better decision to enable a potential biothreat.

Biosecurity is a term who was brought more into our attention after the events of September 11, 2010 who have been followed by the most famous bioterrorist attack with the anthrax letters. Defining biosecurity is not as easy how it looks at first side because this term it has a lot of interpretations according to various disciplines where it is used. At the beginning biosecurity was introduced as a set of measures with the purpose to reduce the risk of transmission of the infectious diseases in living modified organism, quarantined pests and infectious diseases in livestock and crops. Nowadays the term includes also the biological threats to environment, industries and to people and brings into our attention terms like bioterrorism, bioattack, bioweapons, biodefense, biosafety, biohazard, biorisk, biocontainment and biosurety. This article has one primary objective and that is to assess the roots and etymology of the term biosecurity by presenting a short historical perspective which will lead to a better delimitation of the concept, and to define some key concepts related to this area. The result of this conceptual delimitation of the biosecurity is to bring into attention the importance of this area which before COVID-19 events wasn’t took into consideration at the level it should be.