scholarly journals The Global Politics of Health Security before, during, and after COVID-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-481
Author(s):  
Andreas Papamichail
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Health Politics ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Security Regime ◽  
Border Politics ◽  
Firm Basis

AbstractThe COVID-19 pandemic has been shaped by preexisting political, social, and economic relations and governance structures, and will remold these structures going forward. This review essay considers three books on global health politics written by Simon Rushton, Clare Wenham, and Jeremy Youde. Here, I explore what these books collectively and individually can tell us about these preexisting dynamics, the events of the first eighteen months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and possible future directions in the politics of global health. I argue that they provide a firm basis for understanding the inequitable burdens of the pandemic, while juxtaposing these inequities against the narratives of shared vulnerability that sit at the heart of the global health security regime. They also help us make sense of the surveillance, detection, containment, and response mechanisms we have seen during the pandemic; the failures to address the systemic dynamics that drive disease outbreaks; and the national and international politics that have shaped the pandemic response. However, COVID-19 has also vividly and brutally demonstrated how global health hierarchies, racism, border politics, and neoliberal forms of knowledge production have led to a stratified burden of the pandemic. These areas are less apparent in the three books, but ought to be situated front and center in future critical scholarship on global health security.

scholarly journals Assessing National Public Health Law to Prevent Infectious Disease Outbreaks: Immunization Law as a Basis for Global Health Security

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 412-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsion Berhane Ghedamu ◽  
Benjamin Mason Meier
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Assessment Tool ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Health Law ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Public Health Law ◽  
Health Security ◽  
National Immunization

Immunization plays a crucial role in global health security, preventing public health emergencies of international concern and protecting individuals from infectious disease outbreaks, yet these critical public health benefits are dependent on immunization law. Where public health law has become central to preventing, detecting, and responding to infectious disease, public health law reform is seen as necessary to implement the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). This article examines national immunization laws as a basis to implement the GHSA and promote the public's health, analyzing the scope and content of these laws to prevent infectious disease across Sub-Saharan Africa. Undertaking policy surveillance of national immunization laws in 20 Sub-Saharan African countries, this study: (1) developed a legal framework to map the legal attributes relevant to immunization; (2) created an assessment tool to determine the presence of these attributes under national immunization law; and (3) applied this assessment tool to code national legal landscapes. An analysis of these coded laws highlights legal attributes that govern vaccine requirements, supply chains, vaccine administration standards, and medicines quality and manufacturer liability. Based upon this international policy surveillance, it will be crucial to undertake legal epidemiology research across countries, examining the influence of immunization law on vaccination rates and disease outbreaks.

Part II Predominant Security Challenges and International Law, Environmental Security, Ch.32 Pandemics and Other Health Emergencies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heath J Benton
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
International Health ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
World Health ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Security Issue ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Internal Governance

This chapter traces the normative challenges underlying the legal framework for health security. Today’s challenges can be understood as the result of three successive stages of development in global health law. First was the securitization of global public health, whereby a diffuse group of international and national health officials, outside experts, and advocates worked to redefine infectious disease outbreaks as a critical national and international security issue. Secondly, this concept of global health security was inscribed in law through the 2005 revisions to the International Health Regulations, which adopted a governance framework that appeared to be deliberately modelled on domestic emergency powers regimes. Thirdly, this development, rather than settling the World Health Organization’s (WHO) authority in health emergencies, has in turn set off waves of contestation that concern the nature of global health security and how it should be institutionalized. This includes contestation about the internal governance arrangements within the WHO; external conflicts of jurisdiction between the WHO and other institutions; and disagreement about the normative orientation and scope of the WHO’s emergency power.

Legal Challenges to the International Deployment of Government Public Health and Medical Personnel during Public Health Emergencies: Impact on National and Global Health Security

2015 ◽  
Vol 43 (S1) ◽  
pp. 103-106
Author(s):  
Brent Davidson ◽  
Susan Sherman ◽  
Leila Barraza ◽  
Maria Julia Marinissen
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Medical Personnel ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
President Obama ◽  
Health Security

In an increasingly interconnected global community, severe disasters or disease outbreaks in one country or region may rapidly impact global health security. As seen during the responses to the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, and the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, local response capacities can be rapidly overwhelmed and international assistance may be necessary to support the affected region to respond and recover and to protect other countries from the spread of disease. For example, President Obama stated on September 16, 2014, that “if the [Ebola] outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected, with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us…. [T]his…is not just a threat to regional security — it’s a potential threat to global security if these countries break down…. And that’s why…I directed my team to make this a national security priority.”

scholarly journals Achieving Health Security and Threat Reduction through Sharing Sequence Data

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth Yeh ◽  
Jeanne Fair ◽  
Helen Cui ◽  
Carl Newman ◽  
Gavin Braunstein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Disease Surveillance ◽  
Sequence Data ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
The United States ◽  
Genomic Sequencing ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Bioinformatic Tools

With the rapid development and broad applications of next-generation sequencing platforms and bioinformatic analytical tools, genomics has become a popular area for biosurveillance and international scientific collaboration. Governments from countries including the United States (US), Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom have leveraged these advancements to support international cooperative programs that aim to reduce biological threats and build scientific capacity worldwide. A recent conference panel addressed the impacts of the enhancement of genomic sequencing capabilities through three major US bioengagement programs on international scientific engagement and biosecurity risk reduction. The panel contrasted the risks and benefits of supporting the enhancement of genomic sequencing capabilities through international scientific engagement to achieve biological threat reduction and global health security. The lower costs and new bioinformatic tools available have led to the greater application of sequencing to biosurveillance. Strengthening sequencing capabilities globally for the diagnosis and detection of infectious diseases through mutual collaborations has a high return on investment for increasing global health security. International collaborations based on genomics and shared sequence data can build and leverage scientific networks and improve the timeliness and accuracy of disease surveillance reporting needed to identify and mitigate infectious disease outbreaks and comply with international norms. Further efforts to promote scientific transparency within international collaboration will improve trust, reduce threats, and promote global health security.

scholarly journals COVID-19 and Global Health Security: Overview of the Global Health Security Alliance, COVID-19 Response, African Countries’ Approaches, and Ethics

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Belete Yimer ◽  
Wassachew Ashebir ◽  
Awraris Wolde ◽  
Muluken Teshome
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Infectious Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
Pandemic Response

ABSTRACT Public health emergencies can arise from a wide range of causes, one of which includes outbreaks of contagion. The world has continued to be threatened by various infectious outbreaks of different types that have global consequences. While all pandemics are unique in their level of transmission and breadth of impact, the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is the deepest global crisis of the 21st century, which has affected nearly every country globally. Yet, going forward, there will be a continued need for global health security resources to protect people around the world against increasing infectious disease outbreaks frequency and intensity. Pandemic response policies and processes all need to be trusted for effective and ethical pandemic response. As the world can learn during the past few years about frequent infectious disease outbreaks, (these) diseases respect no borders, and, therefore, our spirit of solidarity must respect no borders in our efforts to stop the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and be better prepared to respond effectively to a health crisis in the future.

scholarly journals The value proposition of the Global Health Security Index

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (10) ◽  
pp. e003648
Author(s):  
Sanjana J Ravi ◽  
Kelsey Lane Warmbrod ◽  
Lucia Mullen ◽  
Diane Meyer ◽  
Elizabeth Cameron ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Infectious Disease Outbreaks ◽  
Health Goals ◽  
Security Research ◽  
Security Index ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Ranking Countries

Infectious disease outbreaks pose major threats to human health and security. Countries with robust capacities for preventing, detecting and responding to outbreaks can avert many of the social, political, economic and health system costs of such crises. The Global Health Security Index (GHS Index)—the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across 195 countries—recently found that no country is sufficiently prepared for epidemics or pandemics. The GHS Index can help health security stakeholders identify areas of weakness, as well as opportunities to collaborate across sectors, collectively strengthen health systems and achieve shared public health goals. Some scholars have recently offered constructive critiques of the GHS Index’s approach to scoring and ranking countries; its weighting of select indicators; its emphasis on transparency; its focus on biosecurity and biosafety capacities; and divergence between select country scores and corresponding COVID-19-associated caseloads, morbidity, and mortality. Here, we (1) describe the practical value of the GHS Index; (2) present potential use cases to help policymakers and practitioners maximise the utility of the tool; (3) discuss the importance of scoring and ranking; (4) describe the robust methodology underpinning country scores and ranks; (5) highlight the GHS Index’s emphasis on transparency and (6) articulate caveats for users wishing to use GHS Index data in health security research, policymaking and practice.

scholarly journals An evaluation of the global health security agenda steering group governance interventions

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
N E DeShore ◽  
J A Johnson ◽  
P Malone ◽  
R Greenhill ◽  
W Wuenstal
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health System ◽  
System Performance ◽  
Health System Performance ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Member States ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Governance Indicators ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Global Health Security Agenda

Abstract Background Member States lack of compliance with 2005 IHR implementation led to the launched of the Global Health Security Agenda. This research will provide an understanding of how the Global Health Security Agenda Steering Group (GHSA SG) governance interventions impact health system performance and global health security. This will enhance the understanding of a Steering Group's governance interventions in complex Global Health initiatives. Research questions: To what extent have GHSA SG governance interventions contributed towards enabling health system performance of WHO Member States? To what extent have GHSA SG governance interventions contributed towards the implementation of global health security among WHO Member States? Methods Correlational analysis using Spearman's rho examined the relationship between governance, health system performance and global health security variables at one point in time. A convenience non-probability sample consisting of eight WHO Member States was used. SPSS Statistics generated the bivariate correlation analyzes. Results Governance and health system performance analysis indicated a statistically significant strong positive effect size in 11 out of 18 and moderate positive effect size in the remaining seven out of 18 health system performance indicators. Governance and global health security analysis concluded three of the governance indicators had strong and moderate positive coefficients. Global health security variables demonstrated weak effects in the remaining three governance indicators. Conclusions This study presents a case for health systems embedding in global health security. Health system performance is only as effective at protecting populations when countries achieve core capacities of preparedness and response to global health threats. The associations provide stakeholders information about key characteristics of governance that influence health system performance and global health security implementation. Key messages This study provides an argument for the continued support of the GHSA 2024 Framework with implementation of global health security capabilities and meeting 2005 IHR requirements. The GHSA SG governance role remains profoundly important in establishing sustainable efforts internationally towards achieving the objectives of the GHSA in support of the 2005 IHR standards.

Spread of Infections and Global Health Security

2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 329-330
Author(s):  
Arnauld Nicogossian ◽  
Edward J. Septimus ◽  
Otmar Kloiber ◽  
Bonnie Stabile ◽  
Thomas Zimmerman
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security
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