2014-02-17

the Global Health Security Agenda

news.pol/purges/wwIII/the Global Health Security Agenda:
17: summary:
. due to the heightened risk of Terrorism
there appears to be an increased risk of pandemics

13: news: defense.gov:
Department of Health and Human Services
homeland security and counterterrorism,
World Health Organization,
departments of State, Defense and Agriculture,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
. the National Security Council
(weapons of mass destruction,
terrorism and threat reduction)
the Defense Department
(nuclear, chemical and biological programs)
and the CDC .

.
"With the Global Health Security agreement,
we're talking about making the world safer and more secure
by strengthening our ability as an international community
to prevent, detect and respond to
infectious disease outbreaks
( Ebola and other hemorrhagic illnesses;
"flu"; dengue fever; MERS; SARS;
and other infectious diseases that arise in nature
or that are accidentally or intentionally released).
. countries will be able to detect at least
five of the most deadly organisms
in at least 80 percent of their country,
and they will have emergency operations centers
that can marshal a rapid response team
within 120 minutes to quickly control an outbreak.
.
"We face a real storm of vulnerability,"
"There are new risks from new infections
like H7N9 [avian flu virus] ... and
we're now seeing some microbes that are
resistant to all our treatments.
And unfortunately, there is the possibility of
the spread of intentionally created organisms
either through a terrorist attack
or through inadvertent release of organisms.
In our globalized world, 
a threat anywhere is a threat everywhere.
. the SARS epidemic a decade ago
caused $30 billion of economic damage .
.
In 2007, most countries agreed to abide by
updated International Health Regulations (IHR),
adopted two years earlier at the 58th World Health Assembly.
The legally binding rules accepted country by country
had been revised specifically to help in containing
diseases that potentially could spread quickly worldwide.
The WHO set a five-year deadline for countries
to ensure their national capacities to
respond to such public health events.
.
"In 2012, we were struck by the reality that
80 percent of the 194+ IHR countries
did not meet the WHO deadline to be prepared.
[17: other notable 2012 news (darpa):
Vaccinating susceptible populations
during the initial stage of a pandemic
is critical to containment,
said Dr. Alan Magill, DARPA program manager.
“We’re looking at plant-based solutions
to vaccine production
as a more rapid and efficient alternative to
the standard egg-based technologies,
and the research is very promising.”]
looking at the next 5 years:
# recently:
. the DOD Cooperative Threat Reduction Program
has partnered with the Georgian Ministry of Health
to create a state-of-the-art public and animal
infectious disease surveillance system.
# for 2014:
. the focus will be to
partner with up to 10 countries
to implement and accelerate efforts in
field epidemiology
(eg, if we can diagnose plague in 20 minutes,
it can save lives and stop outbreaks).
# for fiscal 2015:
. usa may add $45 million to the CDC budget
explicitly for global health security
to expand the initiative toward the five-year goal of
making sure that at least 30 countries with
at least 4 million people not currently protected
will become well protected.
# over the next five years:
. usa will announce a commitment to
partner with at least 30 countries
to meet specific milestones
related to the Global Health Security Agenda .

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