Related Research Articles
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security is an independent, nonprofit organization of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The center works to protect people's health from epidemics and pandemics and ensures that communities are resilient to major challenges. The center is also concerned with biological weapons and the biosecurity implications of emerging biotechnology.
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.
Sir Jeremy James Farrar is a British medical researcher who has served as director of the Wellcome Trust since 2013 and will serve as chief scientist at the World Health Organization in 2023. He was previously a professor of tropical medicine at the University of Oxford.
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 Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, formerly known as the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, is an organization of former high-ranking government officials that analyzes US capabilities and capacity to defend against biological threats. According to the Commission's mission statement, the organization was formed to "provide for a comprehensive assessment of the state of U.S. biodefense efforts, and to issue recommendations that will foster change."
Raj Panjabi is an American physician, social entrepreneur, professor and United States government official. Panjabi currently serves as senior director for global health security and biodefense on the United States National Security Council. Previously, Panjabi served as the 3rd U.S. Global Malaria Coordinator to lead the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative from February 2021 to February 2022. Panjabi was the first Asian American and first person born in Africa, where malaria remains endemic, to serve in the role. The U.S. President's Malaria Initiative, led by the U.S. Agency for International Development and co-implemented with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has invested $8 billion to end malaria, helping save over 10.6 million lives and prevent over 1.7 billion cases globally.
Theresa Tam is a Canadian physician and public servant who currently serves as the chief public health officer of Canada, who is the second-in-command of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). Tam initially took the role as acting CPHO following the retirement of her predecessor, Gregory Taylor, on 16 December 2016. She was formally appointed on 26 June 2017.
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.
John-Arne Røttingen is a Norwegian medical scientist, research administrator and civil servant. He is currently Ambassador for Global Health in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has been a special advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Syra Madad is an American pathogen preparedness expert and infectious disease epidemiologist. Madad is the Senior Director of the System-wide Special Pathogens Program at NYC Health + Hospitals where she is part of the executive leadership team which oversees New York City's response to the Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in the city's 11 public hospitals. She was featured in the Netflix documentary series Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak and the Discovery Channel documentary The Vaccine: Conquering COVID.
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.
COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund was a global fund for supporting the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) in containing the COVID-19 pandemic. It was launched on 13 March 2020 by the United Nations Foundation and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation in support of WHO, and was announced by the Director-General of WHO in Geneva, Switzerland. The fund ceased its active fundraising activities at the end of 2021, with further donations to be directed to the WHO Foundation.
Exercise Cygnus was a three-day simulation exercise carried out by the UK Government in October 2016 to estimate the impact of a hypothetical H2N2 influenza pandemic on the United Kingdom. It aimed to identify strengths and weaknesses within the United Kingdom health system and emergency response chain by putting it under significant strain, providing insight on the country's resilience and any future ameliorations required. It was conducted by Public Health England representing the Department of Health and Social Care, as part of a project led by the "Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response Partnership Group". Twelve government departments across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as local resilience forums (LRFs) participated. More than 950 workers from those organisations, prisons and local or central government were involved during the three-day simulation, and their ability to cope under situations of high medical stress was tested.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its spread in Europe has had significant effects on some major EU members countries and on European Union institutions, especially in the areas of finance, civil liberties, and relations between member states.
Rebecca Katz is a professor and director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center. She is an expert in global health and international diplomacy, specializing in emerging infectious diseases. From 2004 to 2019, she was a consultant for the United States Department of State on matters related to the Biological Weapons Convention and emerging infectious disease threats. Katz served on the Joe Biden presidential campaign's public health panel to advise on the COVID-19 pandemic.
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.
Planning and preparing for pandemics has happened in countries and international organizations. The World Health Organization writes recommendations and guidelines, though there is no sustained mechanism to review countries' preparedness for epidemics and their rapid response abilities. National action depends on national governments. In 2005–2006, before the 2009 swine flu pandemic and during the decade following it, the governments in the United States, France, UK, and others managed strategic health equipment stocks, but they often reduced stocks after the 2009 pandemic in order to reduce costs.
John N. Nkengasong is a Cameroonian-American virologist serving as the Global AIDS Coordinator in the Biden administration since 2022. He previously worked as the Director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention from 2016 to 2022, as well as at the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nkengasong was appointed the WHO Special Envoy for Africa.
The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is an independent public inquiry into the British government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Public hearings are expected to begin in 2023. The British prime minister Boris Johnson announced the inquiry on 12 May 2021, to start in Spring 2022. He said the date was chosen because of a possible winter surge in infections, but that preparatory work on the terms of reference would start earlier, as would choosing a chair. In December 2021, Heather Hallett, Baroness Hallett was announced as the chair of the inquiry.
The International Treaty on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response or Pandemic Treaty is a proposed international agreement to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The 194 World Health Organization (WHO) member states agreed in December 2021 to begin negotiations on a global pandemic treaty, aiming for a draft agreement to be finalized by May 2024 for consideration by the 77th World Health Assembly.
References
- ↑ "Main Report & accompanying work - The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response". theindependentpanel.org. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
- ↑ "Report of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response: making COVID-19 the last pandemic". The Lancet. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
- ↑ "WHO 'fell short' and needs reform post-pandemic, UK parliamentary committee says". telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-10-18.
 | This article about an international organization is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
 | This article about the COVID-19 pandemic is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |