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"Global health security, focused on a firefighting short-term response efforts fail to consider the differential impacts of outbreaks on women. For example, the policy response to the Zika outbreak centred on limiting the spread of the vector through civic participation and asking women to defer pregnancy. Both actions are inherently gendered and reveal a distinct lack of consideration of the everyday lives of women. These policies placed women in a position whereby were blamed if they had a child born with Congenital Zika Syndrome, and at the same time governments required women to undertake invisible labour for vector control. What does this tell us about the role of women in global health security? This feminist critique of the Zika outbreak, argues that global health security has thus far lacked a substantive feminist engagement, with the result that the very policies created to manage an outbreak of disease disproportionately fail to protect women. Women are both differentially infected and affected by epidemics. Yet, the dominant policy narrative of global health security has created pathways which focus on protecting the international spread of disease to state economies, rather than protecting those who are most at risk. As such, the state-based structure of global health security provides the fault-line for global health security and women. This book highlights the ways in which women are disadvantaged by global health security policy, through engagement with feminist security studies concepts of visibility; social and stratified reproduction; intersectionality; and structural violence. It argues that it was no coincidence that poor, black women living in low quality housing were the most affected by the Zika outbreak and will continue to be so, until global health security is gender mainstreamed. More broadly, I ask what would global health policy look like if it were to take gender seriously, and how would this impact global disease control sustainability?"--

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.

Since the emergence of HIV/AIDS and SARS, Thailand has understood the security threat posed by disease and has responded by investing in the country's disease control infrastructure, such as through the development of the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP), improving pandemic preparedness, and collaborating with other states, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and private initiatives to ensure health security. This has led to the creation of a multi-stakeholder subregional governance network for disease control. However, underpinning this network is the individual transformation of Thailand, which, beyond acting as a norm entrepreneur, has scaled up its activities in disease control to become a would-be leader in disease control in mainland Southeast Asia. By using Lake's conceptions of hierarchy and Nolte's understanding of regional power, this article shows how Thailand has taken on this leadership role and has been able to dominate the normative processes of subregional disease control and in doing so has strengthened its own economic and national security. Moreover, this article draws conclusions for regional governance more broadly, through examining power dynamics between states within the arrangement. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)

During health emergencies, neglect of gender experiences and needs can compromise the outbreak response. Ebola in West Africa and Zika in Latin America had gendered effects that were evident during the crises, yet governments and international organisations failed to prioritise a gender inclusive response. There is the same risk of neglecting gender inclusive response and knowledge during COVID-19. In this article we examine the consequence of gender exclusion in health emergency response. We ask where can we locate institutional responsibility to take gender seriously to inform and improve sustainable disease control? This article seeks to address this question by turning to feminist institutional theory to explain why gender inclusion in decision making processes is vital for effective response and post-crisis recovery. We argue that the institutional responsibility to recognise gender within the global health emergency regime lies with World Health Organization (WHO). WHO has neglected to mainstream gender into the policies and practice which they promote for the prevention, detection and response of infectious disease outbreaks. WHO is in a position to support gender inclusion practices but it requires the technical agency to recognise the value of gender inclusion framework to inform outbreak response, financial models, and recovery.

Amid a global health crisis, the process for declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is at a crossroads. As a formal declaration by the World Health Organization, a PHEIC is governed by clear legislation as to what is, and what is not, deemed a global health security threat. However, it has become increasingly politicised, and the legal criteria now appear to be secondary to the political motivation or outcome of the announcement. Addressing multiple empirical case studies, including COVID-19, this multidisciplinary book explores the relationship between international law and international relations to interrogate how a PHEIC is declared and its role in how we collectively respond to outbreaks.

A growing body of research has highlighted the disproportionately negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women globally. This article contributes to this work by interrogating the lived realities of sixty-four women in the United Kingdom through semi-structured in-depth interviews, undertaken during the first and second periods of lockdown associated with COVID-19 in 2020. Categorizing the data by subgroup of women and then by theme, this article explores the normative and policy-imposed constraints experienced by women in 2020 with regard to paid and unpaid labor, mental health, access to healthcare services, and government representation and consideration of women. These findings highlight women's varied and gendered experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic and emphasizes the role that government can proactively play in attending to gender inequalities throughout its COVID-19 response.