International Health Regulations
[1][2][3] 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.
However, its underpinnings can be traced to the mid-19th century, when measures to tackle the spread of plague, yellow fever, smallpox and particularly cholera across borders, with as little interference to global trade and commerce, were debated.
[6] In 2010, at the Meeting of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and Their Destruction in Geneva,[12] the sanitary epidemiological reconnaissance was suggested as a well-tested means for enhancing the monitoring of infections and parasitic agents.
The aim of this recommendation was to prevent and minimize the consequences of natural outbreaks of dangerous infectious diseases, as well as the threat of alleged use of biological weapons against BTWC States Parties.
The conference also noted the significance of the sanitary epidemiological reconnaissance in assessing the sanitary-epidemiological situation, organizing and conducting preventive activities, indicating and identifying pathogenic biological agents in the environmental sites, conducting laboratory analysis of biological materials, suppressing hotbeds of infectious diseases, and providing advisory and practical assistance to local health authorities.
In order to declare a PHEIC, the WHO Director-General is required to take into account factors which include the risk to human health and international spread as well as advice from an internationally made up committee of experts, the IHR Emergency Committee (EC), one of which should be an expert nominated by the State within whose region the event arises.
The Director-General takes the EC's advice following their technical assessment of the crisis using legal criteria and a predetermined algorithm after a review of all available data on the event.
Upon declaration of the PHEIC, the EC then makes recommendations on what actions the Director-General and Member States should take to address the crisis.
[16] Numerous published reports by high-level panels have assessed the International Health Regulations for inadequacies and proposed actions that can be taken to improve future responses to outbreaks.
These include technical help from external sources conditional on mobilizing domestic resources, external financing for low income countries, pressure from the international community to increase investment, and considering outbreak preparedness as a factor in the International Monetary Fund's country economic assessments, which influence governments' budget priorities and access to capital markets.
These restrictions worsened financial repercussions and made the work of aid organizations sending support to affected regions more difficult.
Moreover, if governments assume that reporting will lead to inappropriate travel and trade restrictions, they may be hesitant to notify the international community about the outbreak.
[citation needed] A Joint External Evaluation (JEE) is "a voluntary, collaborative, multisectoral process to assess country capacities to prevent, detect and rapidly respond to public health risks whether occurring naturally or due to deliberate or accidental events".
