Modern medicine and
technology have led to vast improvements in global health.
Global life expectancy has increased drastically,
and devastating diseases like smallpox and polio have sharply declined.
Increasing international cooperation is a critical reason for these successes.
In 1948, the World Health Organization was established to direct
and coordinate responses to matters of international health.
The organization launched programs to treat viruses
like the flu, smallpox and polio.
In its early days, the W.H.O.
successfully addressed some of the most pressing health issues of the time.
So the World Health Organization, particularly coming out of the eradication
of smallpox, was an incredibly well respected institution.
The concern that emerged after that was that the organization started
to drift in its priorities around this time.
It became clear that the W.H.O. was not well equipped
to respond effectively to emerging infections.
The spread of HIV and drug resistant tuberculosis revealed massive
shortcomings, and as the diseases spread, the agency failed to contain them.
In 2005,
196 countries agreed to the International Health Regulations,
a set of rules that committed all parties to monitor
and respond to outbreaks of disease in a coordinated, targeted way.
The International Health Regulations or I.H.R.
obligated countries to identify and track outbreaks within their borders
and determine a set of conditions for what constitutes an international emergency.
Once a threat is detected, when you declare that, that means
you're dealing with an outbreak of some sort of a disease
that has not only impact on the country in which the involvement is,
but also has the clear potential to spreading out to other countries
if an outbreak does constitute an international emergency.
Countries are bound by the I.H.R to work together to stop its spread
while minimizing interference with international trade and travel.
But despite these commitments, countries don't always follow the rules.
The challenge with that is regulations are voluntary.
They don't have an enforcement mechanism,
and they also didn't come with more money.
And what we found is in 2014, at least a third of W.H.O.
member countries still hadn't implemented almost a decade later, most of the core
requirements of the international health regulations.
While the Ebola crisis was a wake up call for many,
the international health regulations still have not been implemented by all W.H.O.
member countries.
The cooperation required by the IHR
is important because experts worry a serious pandemic is inevitable
and that it may come from a pathogen currently unknown to cause disease.
Birds and
mammals harbor more than 600,000 unknown viruses
that could jump to humans and become an international pandemic.
Having the infrastructure to both detect and respond effectively
to a so-called disease X is critical to saving lives in the future.
But many countries don't have the capabilities
or the will to adhere to the standards set by I.H.R
Especially poor countries.
In 2014, the infectious virus, Ebola
spread through West Africa, ultimately killing more than 10,000 people.
It wasn't until March of 2014
when we saw that it was spreading from Guinea to Sierra Leone to Liberia,
that people say , my goodness, this is out of control.
And the ball was dropped early on.
And it wasn't until even months later that the W.H.O.
declared a public health emergency of international concern
with a dangerously slow response from the W.H.O..
Ebola moved fast.
The idea that the virus could spread across the world spurred global panic.
21st century air travel poses a new challenge.
Viruses can travel farther and faster than ever before.
A virus like Ebola in West Africa can travel
to the United States in less than a day, as it did in 2014.
Panic spread quickly.
Some concerned citizens and politicians pressed for a ban on travelers
from infected countries as a way to stop Ebola from reaching U.S.
borders.
I think people believe that if you say don't come and we don't let
anyone come, that that will prevent it from coming to our shores.
And that's where the challenge comes in, because that is not actually what happens.
Health researchers and officials argue that in actuality,
travel bans keep medical professionals from reaching those in need and encourage
those potentially infected
to skirt the monitors at the border and enter undetected.
They argue such policies ultimately do far more harm than good
in protecting both Americans and people in the affected countries.
Ultimately, Ebola infected 28,000 people from ten countries.
It took two and a half years to be fully contained.
W.H.O.
officials and its constituents
saw it as a wake up call that they had to work faster,
especially as infectious diseases become more and more frequent.
The number of infections and these outbreaks are rising
because we've seen population growth
and populations expanding into forested areas
where they're more likely to encounters zoonotic diseases.
At the same time, there's been an increase in trade and travel both
within countries and outside of countries, which make it less likely
that diseases are going to burn out in the rural villages
that they once might have.
The United States and other wealthy countries play a pivotal role
in preventing and responding to pandemics, sending funds and medical workers
around the world.
This isn't solely a philanthropic notion, but a matter of national security,
since we live in a world that is truly a global community.
Instability on any part of the world
is a danger to us when it comes to global health crises.
That is a place where the United States is often the leader.
And part of that has to do with our role when it becomes a global health crisis.
It's about national security, diplomacy, health,
because there is a disease X out there collaborating, preparing and adhering
to standard procedures for global health security will be integral to stopping it
in its tracks.
Disease X is the great unknown.
Something that was unanticipated that turns out to be serious,
that spreads rapidly and has a great deal of morbidity and mortality.
That's what we're referred to as Disease X.