"Whether bioagents are thrown at us by terrorists or by Mother Nature, our ability to respond quickly ... will certainly save lives," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told a news conference.

Ridge and Thompson admitted they were virtually building programs from the ground up. BioWatch, which has detectors in 30 cities across the country, had proven to be slow, labor-intensive and plagued by false positives, Ridge said.

"It's not fail-safe, scientifically or technologically, yet," Ridge said.

Part of the money will go to creating quicker and more accurate detectors which give instant results that do not require sending a sample to a laboratory for analysis.

"We are going to more than double the number of BioWatch locations and devices," Ridge added.

Building up a system for centrally reporting disease outbreaks in real-time will be even harder work, said Thompson.

Many experts have called for such a system, which would allow for real-time monitoring of disease outbreaks by reporting symptoms, drug use and disease diagnosis.

Then if a cluster of flu-like symptoms is seen in July, for instance, when influenza is rare, health officials could investigate quickly. It could also catch an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or an anthrax attack, experts say.

"This is going to allow us to get information on a daily basis from doctors, clinics and pharmacies. We've never been connected with clinics and hospitals and pharmacies across America," Thompson said.   

"These investments not only will better prepare the nation for and protect us from a bioterror attack, they also will better prepare us for any public health emergency."

A budget request to be made by President Bush will include $129 million for Homeland Security to expand and upgrade the BioWatch program and create a system to integrate surveillance data from across the government.

HHS would get $135 million to strengthen laboratories, and monitor disease. Most would go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but $5 million would go to the Food and Drug Administration to integrate with Homeland Security and improve food surveillance.

"In addition, the initiative provides $10 million to the Department of Agriculture to improve food and animal surveillance," the departments said in a joint statement.