The development of effective and reliable methods to defend the nation against biological terrorism remains an urgent challenge to researchers in the areas of risk, bio-defense, public health, and emergency medicine. The emerging threat of the avian flu pandemic also highlights the unpreparedness of our nation\u27s health care system to meet a highly contagious and infectious disease outbreak. The implementation of a rapid sensor technology for early detection of influenza-like-illness provides possible opportunities, as well as problems. Bounding and defining such a complex problem is one of the first challenges this research addresses. Approaching this problem from various perspectives such as risk management, critical infrastructures and emergency medicine proves to be a valid strategy for an efficient solution. After defining the problem and laying out a strategy, discussions on possible tools and techniques for the solution of the problem is presented in this paper, together with the compounding sources of and issues with complexity
