scholarly journals The Coronavirus Pandemic and Global Governance: The Domestic Diffusion of Health Norms in Global Health Security Crises

2021 ◽  
pp. 097359842110420
Author(s):  
Shreejita Biswas
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Diffusion Processes ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Norm Diffusion ◽  
The Usa ◽  
National Boundaries

The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic demands imperative discussions in the field of health security and global governance. Traditional studies on health care and global governance have acknowledged the significance of “global” as it rested on the fact that epidemics and pandemics are not restricted within national boundaries. The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the hierarchical division of norm diffusion. Despite the structural inequalities, the patterns of behavior of various countries, such as China, the USA, Italy, South Korea, and India, in managing the crisis suggest a favorable ground for bringing in the importance of national-level decision-making in the global versus local debate. Building upon the arguments from norm theories of diffusion, the article contributes to our understanding that for an effective analysis of the politics of global health governance, the power of local channels in the diffusion of essential health norms cannot be undermined. The article studies the role played by the local-level diffusion processes, in this case, the national state actors in reshaping and integrating essential health norms to make it workable for broader global relevance. As a result, following the norm theories of diffusion, this article analyzes the global–local dynamics with regard to public health in the context of the spread of the COVID-19 health security threat.

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 Replacement of the Gamma by the Delta variant in Brazil: impact of lineage displacement on the ongoing pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Giovanetti ◽  
Vagner Fonseca ◽  
Eduan Wilkinson ◽  
Houriiyah Tegally ◽  
Emmanuel James San ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Disease Severity ◽  
Vaccination Campaign ◽  
National Level ◽  
Natural Immunity ◽  
Detection Failure ◽  
Rapid Spread ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Diagnostic Detection ◽  
Prior Infection

The COVID-19 epidemic in Brazil was driven mainly by the spread of Gamma (P.1), a locally emerged Variant of Concern (VOC) that was first detected in early January 2021. This variant was estimated to be responsible for more than 96% of cases reported between January and June 2021, being associated with increased transmissibility and disease severity, a reduction in neutralization antibodies and effectiveness of treatments or vaccines, as well as diagnostic detection failure. Here we show that, following several importations predominantly from the USA, the Delta variant rapidly replaced Gamma after July 2021. However, in contrast to what was seen in other countries, the rapid spread of Delta did not lead to a large increase in the number of cases and deaths reported in Brazil. We suggest that this was likely due to the relatively successful early vaccination campaign coupled with natural immunity acquired following prior infection with Gamma. Our data reinforces reports of the increased transmissibility of the Delta variant and, considering the increasing concern due to the recently identified Omicron variant, argues for the necessity to strengthen genomic monitoring on a national level to quickly detect and curb the emergence and spread of other VOCs that might threaten global health.

scholarly journals Modelling and predicting the spatio-temporal spread of COVID-19 in Italy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Giuliani ◽  
Maria Michela Dickson ◽  
Giuseppe Espa ◽  
Flavio Santi
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Interaction ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Temporal Distribution ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Italian Provinces ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Surrounding Areas ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background: The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was first detected in China at the end of 2019 and it has since spread in few months all over the World. Italy was one of the first Western countries who faced the health emergency and is one of the countries most severely affected by the pandemic. The diffusion of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Italy has followed a peculiar spatial pattern, however the attention of the scientific community has so far focussed almost exclusively on the prediction of the evolution of the disease over time. Methods: Official freely available data about the number of infected at the finest possible level of spatial areal aggregation (Italian provinces) are used to model the spatio-temporal distribution of COVID-19 infections at local level. An endemic-epidemic time-series mixed-effects generalized linear model for areal disease counts has been implemented to understand and predict spatio-temporal diffusion of the phenomenon. Results: Three subcomponents characterize the fitted model. The first describes the transmission of the illness within provinces; the second accounts for the transmission between nearby provinces; the third is related to the evolution of the disease over time. At the local level, the provinces first concerned by containment measures are those that are not affected by the effects of spatial neighbours. On the other hand, the component accounting for the spatial interaction with surrounding areas is prevalent for provinces that are strongly involved by contagions. Moreover, the proposed model provides good forecasts for the number of infections at local level while controlling for delayed reporting. Conclusions: A strong evidence is found that strict control measures implemented in some provinces efficiently break contagions and limit the spread to nearby areas. While containment policies may potentially be more effective if planned considering the peculiarities of local territories, the effective and homogeneous enforcement of control measures at national level is needed to prevent the disease control being delayed or missed as a whole. This may also apply at international level where, as it is for the EU or the USA, the internal border checks among states have largely been abolished.

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.

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.

Violence and Everyday Crises

2021 ◽  
pp. 139-164
Author(s):  
Clare Wenham
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Gender Violence ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Health Security ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Crisis Events ◽  
Structural Failures ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

Zika was framed globally as a ‘crisis’ with a narrative demonstrating a paternalistic approach to policymaking and failing to take local contexts into consideration. This chapter examines structural and gender-based violence in juxtaposition to the framing of Zika as a global health crisis at the local level. Despite being invisibilised by global health security and responsibilised by domestic governments, women most susceptible to the Zika outbreak, while providing for their children’s needs, were fighting everyday challenges of financial security, increasing community and gender violence, poverty, and state structural failures in provision of routine health, sanitation, and housing. Zika became just one of a string of individual security threats these women had to battle. This disjuncture needs to be exposed and counteracted, and the lived reality of those infected must be addressed to meaningfully respond to these health crisis events.

scholarly journals Modelling and predicting the spatio-temporal spread of COVID-19 in Italy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Giuliani ◽  
Maria Michela Dickson ◽  
Giuseppe Espa ◽  
Flavio Santi
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Interaction ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Temporal Distribution ◽  
Control Measures ◽  
Disease Evolution ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background: Severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has been firstly detected in China at the end of 2019 and it spread in few months all over the world. Italy is the second country in the World for number of cases, and the diffusion of COVID-19 has followed a peculiar spatial pattern. However, the interest of scientific community has been devoted almost exclusively to the prediction of the disease evolution over time so far. Methods: Official freely available data about the number of infected at the finest possible level of spatial areal aggregation (Italian provinces) are used to model the spatio-temporal distribution of COVID-19 infections at local level. An endemic-epidemic time-series mixed-effects generalized linear model for areal disease counts has been implemented to understand and predict spatio-temporal diffusion of the phenomenon. Results: Three subcomponents characterize the fitted model. The first describes the transmission of the illness within provinces; the second accounts for the transmission between nearby provinces; the third is related to the evolution of the disease over time. At the local level, the provinces first concerned by containment measures are those that are not affected by the effects of spatial neighbours. On the other hand, the component accounting for the spatial interaction with surrounding areas is prevalent for provinces that are strongly involved by contagions. Moreover, the proposed model provides good forecasts of the number of infections at local level while controlling for delayed reporting. Conclusions: A strong evidence is found that strict control measures implemented in some provinces efficiently break contagions and limit the spread to nearby areas. While containment policies may potentially be more effective if planned considering the peculiarities of local territories, the effective and homogeneous enforcement of control measures at national level is needed to prevent the disease control being delayed or missed as a whole. This may also apply at international level where, as it is for the EU or the USA, the internal border checks among states have largely been abolished.

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