Functioning of the International Health Regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic
Date
2021
Type:
Article
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Abstract
When the International Health Regulations (IHR) came into force in 2007, WHO announced that “the global community has a new legal framework to better manage its collective defences to detect disease events and to respond to public health risks and emergencies”.
The IHR aim to enable the prevention, detection, and containment of health risks and threats, the strengthening of national capacities for that purpose, and the coordination of a global alert and response system.
In the prolonged and unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, some have stated that the IHR “are a conservative instrument that constrain rather than facilitate rapid action”. What we, the Review Committee on the Functioning of the IHR (2005) during the COVID-19 Response, found instead was that much of what is in the IHR is well considered,
appropriate, and meaningful in any public health emergency. However, many countries only applied the IHR in part, were not sufficiently aware of these regulations, or deliberately ignored them,3,4 and that WHO did not make full use of the powers given to it through the wording and spirit of the IHR. Thus, the IHR are not deficient, but their implementation by member states and by WHO was inadequate. The IHR Review Committee on COVID-19, which consists of 20 experts with diverse health expertise from around the world, derived these findings through a combination of literature review, background information requested from the WHO IHR Secretariat, interviews with experts, statements from member states, and review of IHR articles.
Description
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Citation
Aavitsland P, Aguilera X, Al-Abri SS, Amani V, Aramburu CC, Attia TA, Blumberg LH, Chittaganpitch M, Le Duc JW, Li D, Mokhtariazad T, Moussif M, Ojo OE, Okwo-Bele JM, Saito T, Sall AA, Salter MWAP, Sohn M, Wieler LH. Functioning of the International Health Regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lancet. 2021 Oct 9;398(10308):1283-1287. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)01911-5
Keywords
COVID-19 / epidemiology, COVID-19 / prevention & control, Global Health / statistics & numerical data, Global Health / trends, Humans, International Health Regulations / organization & administration, International Health Regulations / statistics & numerical data, International Health Regulations / trends, Pandemics / prevention & control, World Health Organization