Burwell hosts 16th Annual Global Health Security Initiative Ministerial Meeting

Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Friday hosted the 16th Annual Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI) Ministerial Meeting, featuring officials from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico and the U.K., as well as the European Commission and the World Health Organization.

“The GHSI network is a crucial forum to work together on global health security threats,” Burwell said. “Since 2001, our nations have come together to discuss the lessons we’ve learned from past crises and to prepare for future challenges. Since that first meeting, we have met in person every year to make sure we are individually and collectively ready to respond to global public health emergencies.”

One of the key takeaways from the conference was the need to strengthen organizations like the WHO by improving its emergency response system and linking it with the pandemic preparedness efforts of the World Bank.

“This year, we agreed to collaborate on more efficient and rapid ways to respond to global health security threats,” Burwell said. “We discussed how important it is to rapidly share biological samples, so we can quickly understand outbreaks and implement the best response. We agreed to quickly finalize a Sample Sharing Framework, which provides a process for sharing biological materials and a model material transfer agreement that will help countries share samples during public health emergencies. And we talked about lessons learned from the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, and how we can use these in our response to the recent outbreak of the Zika virus.”