PandemicsPublic Health as National Security
Experts agree that it is not a matter of if, but when, the next large-scale outbreak of infectious disease will occur. Even as more countries devote more resources to health security – defined as the framework for preventing, detecting, and responding to biological threats, whether naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate – there are still disagreements about whether public health be framed as a national security issue.
The international community continues to deal with the fallout of COVID-19, and worries about more transmissible and lethal coronavirus variants have reinforced concerns that the world is entering an “age of pandemics.” Experts agree that it is not a matter of if, but when, the next large-scale outbreak of infectious disease will occur.
Governments around the world are devoting more resources to global health security as the framework for preventing, detecting, and responding to biological threats, whether naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate.
Despite promises of expanded multilateral cooperation, however, there are disagreements over the meaning of health security and whether it is the best approach for mitigating the risk of future pandemics. Among the questions yet to be answered: Should public health be framed as a national security issue? Can the concept of health security help policymakers break the gridlock in global health governance and address the growing threat of infectious diseases?
Amanda Moodie and Nima Gerami, with Federica D’Alessandra, of the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford have just published a report — Rethinking Health Security After COVID-19
— which aims to answer these and similar questions.
Here are the opening sections of the report:
Executive Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed major challenges to existing systems of global health governance. Even countries considered leaders in health preparedness, notably the US and the UK, struggled to contain COVID-19 domestically and were unable to mount an effective international response. As a result, the world suffered over 4.4 million deaths and an estimated 4.4 per cent decline in global GDP in 2020 alone – the deepest global recession since the end of World War II. The economic and health impacts of the pandemic have, meanwhile, fallen disproportionately on the world’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable populations.
COVID-19 has therefore laid bare deep fissures in the current global health architecture and highlighted the need for urgent reform. One proposal for reducing the risk of future pandemics is to elevate public health as a national security priority. For decades, policymakers and experts have argued that the concept of national security should extend beyond state-centric, militaryfocused threats, to include infectious diseases and climate change.
