scholarly journals Securitizing Zika: The case of Brazil

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (5) ◽  
pp. 398-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Wenham ◽  
Deborah BL Farias
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Zika Virus ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Disease Characteristics ◽  
Congenital Zika Syndrome ◽  
High Level

Brazil’s Zika virus crisis (2015–17), following hot on the heels of the Ebola outbreak (2014–15), dominated newsfeeds and high-level discussions amid governments, the UN system and beyond, with emerging fears relating to Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS), embodied by microcephaly. However, beyond the ensuing panic in Latin America facing a generation of Zika babies, the outbreak demonstrates key developments in our understanding of the interaction between health and security, based on the Copenhagen School’s securitization approach. It suggests that unlike previous diseases that were securitized, it was not the virus that was the cause of the security threat, nor how many people were affected, but a combined concern over where (in Brazil at a time of domestic political crisis), when (immediately post-Ebola), who (foetuses and babies), how (unknown disease characteristics) and what was the existential threat (the vectorized unknown). This article shows these developments for global health security through empirical analysis of the multiple securitization processes that occurred within Brazil for the Zika virus, at the subnational and federal levels.

The Zika Virus

2021 ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Clare Wenham
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Zika Virus ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Levels Of Analysis ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Integrated Vector Control

This chapter offers a contextual narrative to the Zika outbreak and justifies a pertinent case study for gender analysis in global health security. It contends that Zika was constructed as a security threat at multiple levels of analysis. This framing perpetuated an exclusion and problematization of women in global health security more broadly. The chapter argues that the key policies developed—integrated vector control, vaccine development and behavioural requests around reproduction, to paraphrase, ‘clean your houses and don’t get pregnant’—were inherently gendered given the activities required are socially prescribed women’s activities. It further argues that although the outbreak revolved around women, gender was not mainstreamed into any of the policies developed, and the securitised policies failed to protect those women most at risk from the disease.

scholarly journals The oversecuritization of global health: changing the terms of debate

2019 ◽  
Vol 95 (5) ◽  
pp. 1093-1110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clare Wenham
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Security Issue ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
Community Needs ◽  
Health Community ◽  
The Individual

Abstract Linking health and security has become a mainstream approach to health policy issues over the past two decades. So much so that the discourse of global health security has become close to synonymous with global health, their meanings being considered almost interchangeable. While the debates surrounding the health–security nexus vary in levels of analysis from the global to the national to the individual, this article argues that the consideration of health as a security issue, and the ensuing path dependencies, have shifted in three ways. First, the concept has been broadened to the extent that a multitude of health issues (and others) are constructed as threats to health security. Second, securitizing health has moved beyond a rhetorical device to include the direct involvement of the security sector. Third, the performance of health security has become a security threat in itself. These considerations, the article argues, alter the remit of the global health security narrative; the global health community needs to recognize this shift and adapt its use of security-focused policies accordingly.

scholarly journals Global Health Security: Security for whom? Security from what?

2011 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 779-796 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Rushton
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Current System ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Concept Of Health ◽  
Explicit Recognition ◽  
High Level ◽  
Health Discourse ◽  
Developed Nations

The concept of ‘health security’ has been increasingly apparent in recent years in both academic and policy discourses on transborder infectious disease threats. Yet it has been noted that there are a range of conceptualisations of ‘health security’ in circulation and that confusion over the concept is creating international tensions with some states (particularly from the Global South) fearing that ‘health security’ in reality means securing the West. This article examines these tensions but puts forward an alternative explanation for them. It begins by looking at the different ‘health securities' that characterise the contemporary global health discourse, arguing that there is in fact a good deal more consensus than we are often led to believe. In particular there is a high level of agreement evident over what the major threats to ‘health security’ are and what should be done about them. These are a particular set of health risks which are primarily seen as major threats by Western developed nations, and contemporary global responses – often couched in the language of global health security – have a tendency to focus on containment rather than prevention. The article makes the case that to resolve the tensions around (global) health security there is the need for a more explicit recognition of the primary beneficiaries of the current system, and of who is bearing the costs. Only following such a recognition can meaningful debates be carried out about the appropriate prioritisation of global health security in relation to other global health governance priorities.

scholarly journals Global health security threats and related risks in Latin America

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-25
Author(s):  
Kenneth B. Yeh ◽  
Falgunee K. Parekh ◽  
Brooke Borgert ◽  
Gene G. Olinger ◽  
Jeanne M. Fair
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security

Zika and In/visibility

2021 ◽  
pp. 81-106
Author(s):  
Clare Wenham
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Interventions ◽  
Northeast Brazil ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Public Health Interventions ◽  
Health Security ◽  
The Public ◽  
Feminist Discourse ◽  
Public Audience

This chapter begins with the premise that women are not a homogenous group; and some women are more important than others to global health security, which relays important information about political prioritisation. The chapter then shows how the Zika outbreak provides a pertinent example for a detailed nuanced analysis of in/visibility, which might have wider ramifications for understanding this concept in feminist discourse. Women cradling babies born with CZS were on the front pages of newspapers, policy reports and the collective global psyche. But it was a certain type of woman, performing a particular function of motherhood to legitimise activity within a security narrative, instrumentalised to garner support for extraordinary measures amid the public audience of the security threat. The affected women were conspicuous in the narrative of global health security, and were instrumentalised to facilitate Zika’s securitisation, but that these same Zika infected and affected women were invisible as the target group for public health interventions, particularly when considering intersectionality—these women were poor, black, single, and living in northeast Brazil.

scholarly journals Strengthening global health security by embedding the International Health Regulations requirements into national health systems

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. e000656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Kluge ◽  
Jose Maria Martín-Moreno ◽  
Nedret Emiroglu ◽  
Guenael Rodier ◽  
Edward Kelley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health System ◽  
International Health ◽  
Health System Strengthening ◽  
Health Coverage ◽  
International Health Regulations ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security ◽  
High Level ◽  
Health Regulations

The International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005, as the overarching instrument for global health security, are designed to prevent and cope with major international public health threats. But poor implementation in countries hampers their effectiveness. In the wake of a number of major international health crises, such as the 2014 Ebola and 2016 Zika outbreaks, and the findings of a number of high-level assessments of the global response to these crises, it has become clear that there is a need for more joined-up thinking between health system strengthening activities and health security efforts for prevention, alert and response. WHO is working directly with its Member States to promote this approach, more specifically around how to better embed the IHR (2005) core capacities into the main health system functions. This paper looks at how and where the intersections between the IHR and the health system can be best leveraged towards developing greater health system resilience. This merging of approaches is a key component in pursuit of Universal Health Coverage and strengthened global health security as two mutually reinforcing agendas.

scholarly journals Zika virus and global health security

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 1099-1100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence O Gostin ◽  
James G Hodge
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Zika Virus ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security

scholarly journals Extension of the basic Global Health Security (GHS) index: Health system security indicator

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-15
Author(s):  
Živan Živković ◽  
Marija Panić
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health System ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Multiple Linear Regression Analysis ◽  
Coefficient Of Determination ◽  
Extended Model ◽  
Global Health Security ◽  
Health Security ◽  
High Level

The paper discusses the extension of the Global Health Security (GHS) index with new non-medical predictors: Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita as a basic indicator of economic growth, Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Democracy Index (DI) as significant indicators of social relations. This extension of the GHS index provides a more reliable model for predicting the ability of a country's health system to provide an adequate response in a pandemic crisis when human health is seriously endangered. Evaluation of the results of the extension of the GHS index by additional non-medical predictors was performed using multiple linear regression analysis (MLRA), both for the basic and for the extended model. The obtained values of the coefficient of determination (R2) indicate that the extended GHS model shows the same high level of fitting as the basic model, which confirms the justification of its extension. The research was conducted on the basis of available data for 42 European countries.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document