Suchergebnisse

According to the latest World Bank estimates, over the past decade some US $4.3 billion has been pledged by governments to combat the threat of pandemic influenza. Presidents, prime ministers, and even dictators the world over have been keen to demonstrate their commitment to tackling this disease, but this has not always been the case. Indeed, government-led intervention in responding to the threat of pandemic influenza is a relatively recent phenomenon. I explore how human understandings of influenza have altered over the past 500 years and how public policy responses have shifted accordingly. I trace the progress in human understanding of causation from meteorological conditions to the microscopic, and how this has prompted changes in public policy to mitigate the disease's impact. I also examine the latest trend of viewing pandemic influenza as a security threat and how this has changed contemporary governance structures and power dynamics.

The growing trend toward the securitization of infectious disease has legitimated a role for national militaries in responding to public health crises. This apparent "militarization" of health has met with resistance from the health and security sectors alike, who argue that it risks politicizing health outcomes while also draining limited military resources. This article attempts to place such concerns within the broader historical context of military involvement in public health. With specific reference to pandemic influenza—a disease of great historical import and a current policy priority in the context of securitized global public health—this article details the pedigree of military involvement in fighting the disease and draws on the established record to demonstrate the role that militaries can play in improving public health outcomes. The article argues for an ongoing military role in the global fight against pandemic influenza, both in augmenting civil influenza programs and in improving their own preparation and response mechanisms for future pandemics.

In early 2007 the Indonesian government announced that it would cease sharing H5N1 influenza virus samples with the World Health Organization's Global Influenza Surveillance Network. At the heart of the government's complaint was the fact that samples were being passed by the WHO to pharmaceutical companies which developed, and patented, influenza vaccines that the Indonesian authorities could not purchase. The decision gained widespread support among advocates of greater equity of access to medicines, and in response the WHO established an intergovernmental process to agree a framework for influenza virus sharing. The process officially concluded in April 2011 and a new Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework (PIPF) was agreed at the 64th World Health Assembly in May 2011. This article investigates the events that prompted the re-examination of a technical cooperation system that has provided effective global health security on influenza for 60 years, and evaluates the framework that has now been agreed. Drawing the distinction between functional and moral-political benefits, the article argues that PIPF more accurately represents a diplomatic stand-off – one that has now been effectively sidelined with the passage of the agreement – rather than genuine reform. In fact, the PIPF papers over fundamental disagreements regarding authority in global health governance, the relationship between the WHO and governments, and the role of private industry. The article concludes by examining an alternative mechanism that would arguably better address the inherent tensions between national and collective interests, and accomplish the functional and moral-political benefits that the negotiations set out to achieve.

In the age of air travel and globalized trade, pathogens that once took months or even years to spread beyond their regions of origin can now circumnavigate the globe in a matter of hours. Amid growing concerns about such epidemics as Ebola, SARS, MERS, and H1N1, disease diplomacy has emerged as a key foreign and security policy concern as countries work to collectively strengthen the global systems of disease surveillance and control. The revision of the International Health Regulations (IHR), eventually adopted by the World Health Organization's member states in 2005, was the foremost manifestation of this novel diplomacy. The new regulations heralded a profound shift in international norms surrounding global health security, significantly expanding what is expected of states in the face of public health emergencies and requiring them to improve their capacity to detect and contain outbreaks. Drawing on Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink's "norm life cycle" framework and based on extensive documentary analysis and key informant interviews, Disease Diplomacy traces the emergence of these new norms of global health security, the extent to which they have been internalized by states, and the political and technical constraints governments confront in attempting to comply with their new international obligations. The authors also examine in detail the background, drafting, adoption, and implementation of the IHR while arguing that the very existence of these regulations reveals an important new understanding: that infectious disease outbreaks and their management are critical to national and international security."--Publisher description