Nations Must Cooperate On Unprecedented Scale To Secure Global Public Health, WHO Report

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Main Category: Public Health
Also Included In: Bird Flu / Avian Flu;  Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Article Date: 24 Aug 2007 - 8:00 PDT

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According to the World Health Organization (WHO), global public health security demands international cooperation on an unprecendented scale to contain the increasing global threat of "disease outbreaks, epidemics, industrial accidents, natural disasters and other health emergencies".

This is the focus of the WHO's "World Health Report 2007", which emphasizes the International Health Regulations (2005) that came into force in June this year as an important starting point.

The main conclusion of the report is that no country can prepare for and respond to a global threat to public health without the cooperation of other countries. A global threat to public health can only be matched by global cooperation which means investing and working together to share information in a timely and open fashion, across all kinds of boundaries and groups, within and across industries, academia, public and private, civic and international organizations.

Building resilient global public health security "rests on a solid foundation of transparent and benevolent partnerships," says the report. In order to do this, the WHO urges all countries and organizations to acknowledge the part they play in making it work.

More specifically the report recommends:

• All countries fully implement the recommendations of IHR 2005.
• All governments conduct their affairs transparently on matters concerning public health, and recognize that public health cuts across and is integrated into economic and social policies and processes.
• Within and across nations, increased collaboration among government departments, such as health, agriculture, trade and tourism.
• Global cooperation in surveillance and emergency response, across and within governments, United Nations agencies, private and public sector organizations and industries, academia, professional associations and institutions, media organizations, civil society.
• Open sharing of knowledge, materials, technology and procedures that help to secure global public health quickly. These include sharing of laboratory and virus samples, for example.
• Strengthening the public health infrastructure of all countries to take into account threats of a global scale. This should be a shared global responsibility, said the report.
• Global investment in training of public health personnel, improving and developing surveillance, laboratories, response networks, and prevention campaigns.

The eradication of polio shows how cooperation on this scale can work and the experience of this success should be built on in monitoring and responding to other global diseases and hazards, said the report.

In reference to the need to share knowledge, materials and technology, the report emphasized that:

"The struggle for global public health security will be lost if vaccines, treatment regimens, and facilities and diagnostics are available only to the wealthy."

While this report has concentrated on acute threats to health, the WHO was also keen to emphasize that nations and policy makers should not lose sight of the need to maintain transparency and openness on the matter of endemic diseases such as HIV/AIDS which also pose a potential threat to global public health.

Next year's report will focus on primary health care and humanitarian action in times of crisis, said the WHO.

The International Health Regulations (IHR) are a set of international laws around public health that most countries in the world have agreed to follow. The intention is to mobilize a seamless global effort to contain threats from diseases that spread rapidly from country to country such as SARS or the possibility of a human to human form of deadly H5N1 bird flu. It also covers threats from potentially life threatening hazards such as chemical spills and leaks or nuclear melt-downs.

IHR 2005 is a revision of an earlier agreement, the IHR 1969. IHR 1969 only covered cholera, plague, yellow fever and smallpox, was considered to be procedurally too reactive and slow, and in this day and age of easy and frequent global air travel, had limited power to contain a global threat quickly enough.

The WHO describes the revision of IHR that was carried out in 2005 as an "unprecedented international public health agreement to contain health emergencies at the source, not only at national borders". IHR 2005 came into effect on 15th June this year. It covers all diseases and health events that pose a public health emergency on a global scale.

Click here to read the full report "The world health report 2007 - A safer future: global public health security in the 21st century".

Click here for more information on IHR 2005 (WHO site).

Written by: Catharine Paddock
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