Countries cooperate on deadly diseases
Print Edition
Twenty-seven countries yesterday announced the launch of an effort to improve the ability to prevent, detect, respond to and contain outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases.
The Global Health Security Agenda was formed to take on such outbreaks whether natural, accidental or intentional, as in the case of a biological weapon.
Meeting in Washington, DC, the countries include several that have been Ground Zero for recent outbreaks of potentially fatal contagious illnesses such as H7N9 bird flu, which was detected in China a year ago, and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which was first reported in Saudi Arabia in 2012.
The initiative is a tacit recognition that the vast majority of countries are poorly prepared to detect, let alone contain, disease outbreaks, and that their failure to institute effective surveillance and control systems poses a global threat.
“In our interconnected world we are all vulnerable” when countries lack the will or the ability to detect and contain outbreaks of infectious diseases, Laura Holgate, senior director for Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism and Threat Reduction at the US National Security Council, told reporters ahead of yesterday’s meeting.
“Disease threats spread faster than ever before,” and “outbreaks anywhere in the world are only a plane ride away” from everywhere else.
The Pentagon, too, is involved, already spending nearly US$300 million a year to build laboratories and other health-security infrastructure overseas.
“The global threat (of disease outbreaks) requires the Department of Defense to innovate,” said Andrew Weber, assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs.
The Global Health Security Agenda aims to prevent avoidable epidemics by, for instance, keeping to a minimum the number of labs worldwide that store dangerous microbes and by extending vaccination programs.
Another goal is to detect threats early, such as by strengthening and linking disease-monitoring systems of individual countries, developing real-time electronic reporting systems, and promoting faster sharing of biological samples, such as throat swabs and blood samples.
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