Name
Smintheus is the epithet of the god Apollo in his persona of causing massive and/ or sudden death and unleashing pestilence, mostly understood today as infectious diseases, particularly epidemics and pandemics with plague being his personal favorite.

Aim and content
The database is directly associated, in terms of content, with the standard US release “HHS and USDA select agents and toxins list”. It was crafted from the very beginning not to include any feature applicable in illegitimate/malevolent use, with the sacrifice of more enticing and appealing features being considered a fair price to pay. Thus, its use remains the concentrated presentation of a current status of possibly high-risk bioagents with the additional, temporal element which is currently focused in exclusions and de-selections as it is considered extremely valuable in forming an integrated picture.