A pandemic is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic disease with a stable number of infected individuals is not a pandemic. Widespread endemic diseases with a stable number of infected individuals such as recurrences of seasonal influenza are generally excluded as they occur simultaneously in large regions of the globe rather than being spread worldwide.
Biosecurity refers to measures aimed at preventing the introduction and/or spread of harmful organisms to animals and plants in order to minimize the risk of transmission of infectious disease. In agriculture, these measures are aimed at protecting food crops and livestock from pests, invasive species, and other organisms not conducive to the welfare of the human population. The term includes biological threats to people, including those from pandemic diseases and bioterrorism. The definition has sometimes been broadened to embrace other concepts, and it is used for different purposes in different contexts.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, the first identified strain of the SARS coronavirus species, severe acute respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV). The first known cases occurred in November 2002, and the syndrome caused the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. In the 2010s, Chinese scientists traced the virus through the intermediary of Asian palm civets to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) is an agency of the European Union (EU) whose mission is to strengthen Europe's defences against infectious diseases. It covers a wide spectrum of activities, such as: surveillance, epidemic intelligence, response, scientific advice, microbiology, preparedness, public health training, international relations, health communication, and the scientific journal Eurosurveillance. The centre was established in 2004 and is headquartered in Solna, Sweden.
Disease surveillance is an epidemiological practice by which the spread of disease is monitored in order to establish patterns of progression. The main role of disease surveillance is to predict, observe, and minimize the harm caused by outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic situations, as well as increase knowledge about which factors contribute to such circumstances. A key part of modern disease surveillance is the practice of disease case reporting.
Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases is among the largest publicly available emerging diseases and outbreak reporting systems in the world. The purpose of ProMED is to promote communication amongst the international infectious disease community, including scientists, physicians, veterinarians, epidemiologists, public health professionals, and others interested in infectious diseases on a global scale. Founded in 1994, ProMED has pioneered the concept of electronic, Internet-based emerging disease and outbreak detection reporting. In 1999, ProMED became a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. As of 2016, ProMED has more than 75,000 subscribers in over 185 countries. With an average of 13 posts per day, ProMED provides users with up-to-date information concerning infectious disease outbreaks on a global scale.
The Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) is an electronic public health early warning system developed by Canada's Public Health Agency, and is part of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN). This system monitors internet media, such as news wires and websites, in nine languages in order to help detect and report potential disease or other health threats around the world. The system has been credited with detecting early signs of the 2009 swine flu pandemic in Mexico, Zika in West Africa, H5N1 in Iran, MERS and Ebola.
The International Health Regulations (IHR), first adopted by the World Health Assembly in 1969 and last revised in 2005, are a legally binding rules that only apply to the WHO that is an instrument that aims for international collaboration "to prevent, protect against, control, and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks and that avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade". The IHR is the only international legal treaty with the responsibility of empowering the World Health Organization (WHO) to act as the main global surveillance system.
The United States Intelligence Community (IC) has a long history of producing assessments on infectious diseases. Most of these papers are distributed to government administrators and inform the choices of policymakers. Three of these assessments stand out as analytical products that have had important impact on the awareness, funding and treatment of infectious diseases around the world. The first paper is the National Intelligence Estimate on the Global Infectious Disease Threat, the second paper is the assessment on the Next Wave of HIV/AIDS, and the third paper was the assessment on SARS. This page summarizes the findings of these three papers and provides information about their impact.
A public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) is a formal declaration by the World Health Organization (WHO) of "an extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other States through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response", formulated when a situation arises that is "serious, sudden, unusual, or unexpected", which "carries implications for public health beyond the affected state's national border" and "may require immediate international action". Under the 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR), states have a legal duty to respond promptly to a PHEIC. The declaration is publicized by an IHR Emergency Committee (EC) of international experts, which was developed following the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak.
The Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) is a network composed of numerous technical and public health institutions, laboratories, NGOs, and other organizations that work to observe and respond to threatening epidemics. GOARN works closely with and under the World Health Organization (WHO), which is one of its most notable partners. Its goals are to: examine and study diseases, evaluate the risks that certain diseases pose, and improve international capability to deal with diseases.
Disease X is a placeholder name that was adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2018 on their shortlist of blueprint priority diseases to represent a hypothetical, unknown pathogen that could cause a future epidemic. The WHO adopted the placeholder name to ensure that their planning was sufficiently flexible to adapt to an unknown pathogen. Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci stated that the concept of Disease X would encourage WHO projects to focus their research efforts on entire classes of viruses, instead of just individual strains, thus improving WHO capability to respond to unforeseen strains. In 2020, experts, including some of the WHO's own expert advisors, speculated that COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus strain, met the requirements to be the first Disease X.
Health security is a concept that encompasses activities and measures across sovereign boundaries that mitigates public health incidents to ensure the health of populations. It is an evolving paradigm within the fields of international relations and security studies. Proponents of health security posit that all states have a responsibility to protect the health and wellbeing of their populations. Opponents suggest health security impacts civil liberties and the equal distribution of resources.
Dale Andrew Fisher FRACP is an Australian physician who specialises in Infectious Diseases and is a Senior Consultant in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the National University Hospital, Singapore. He is also a Professor of Medicine at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, the chair of the National Infection Prevention and Control Committee through the Ministry of Health, Singapore, and chair of the steering committee of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network hosted by the World Health Organization.
Michael Joseph Ryan is an Irish epidemiologist and former trauma surgeon, specialising in infectious disease and public health. He is executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme, leading the team responsible for the international containment and treatment of COVID-19. Ryan has held leadership positions and has worked on various outbreak response teams in the field to eradicate the spread of diseases including bacillary dysentery, cholera, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, Ebola, Marburg virus disease, measles, meningitis, relapsing fever, Rift Valley fever, SARS, and Shigellosis.
Pandemic prevention is the organization and management of preventive measures against pandemics. Those include measures to reduce causes of new infectious diseases and measures to prevent outbreaks and epidemics from becoming pandemics.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a leading organisation involved in the global coordination for mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic within the broader United Nations response to the pandemic.
Science diplomacy is the collaborative efforts by local and global entities to solve global issues using science and technology as a base. In science diplomacy, collaboration takes place to advance science but science can also be used to facilitate diplomatic relations. This allows even conflicting nations to come together through science to find solutions to global issues. Global organizations, researchers, public health officials, countries, government officials, and clinicians have previously worked together to create effective measures of infection control and subsequent treatment. They continue to do so through sharing of resources, research data, ideas, and by putting into effect laws and regulations that can further advance scientific research. Without the collaborative efforts of such entities, the world would not have the vaccines and treatments we now possess for diseases that were once considered deadly such as tuberculosis, tetanus, polio, influenza, etc. Historically, science diplomacy has proved successful in diseases such as SARS, Ebola, Zika and continues to be relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic today.
The Weekly Epidemiological Record (WER) is a publication of the World Health Organization (WHO) that as of 2020 is in its 95th volume. It is published in English and French with the alternative title of the Relevé épidémiologique hebdomadaire. It aims to rapidly disseminate epidemiological information about outbreaks of diseases under the International Health Regulations and about communicable diseases of public health importance. This includes emerging or re-emerging diseases.
The Connecting Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance (CORDS) is a "regional infectious disease surveillance network that neighboring countries worldwide are organizing to control cross-border outbreaks at their source." In 2012, CORDS was registered as a legal, non-profit international organization in Lyon, France. As of 2021, CORDS was composed of "six regional member networks, working in 28 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe."
