A recent Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) symposium focused on the global response to the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa and strategies since to put health security policies into practice.
The symposium was part of the Commission on Strengthening America’s Health Security, a two-year effort launched by CSIS in April to focus on global disorder, countermeasures, and changes in biotechnology. J. Stephen Morrison, senior vice president and director of the CSIS Global Health Policy Center, said pandemic preparedness will be one of the commission’s highest priorities.
“Ebola propelled us forward,” Morrison said in his opening remarks. “That tragic set of events triggered numerous, at least seven studies, that all had some common conclusions around fixing (the World Health Organization), around investing in capacities particularly in lower income countries and lower-middle income countries, and changing our approach to research and development. And it boosted the global health security alliance, the global health security agenda, adding $1 billion in U.S. emergency funds to build capacities and to motivate others to join.”
Today, the focus has shifted to sustaining those financial and political commitments during a period in which the Ebola threat has waned, Morrison continued.
Beth Cameron, vice president for global biological policy and programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), moderated a panel discussion between David Heymann, head and senior fellow at Chatham House’s Centre on Global Health Security; Andrew Kitua, Africa regional director of the USAID Preparedness and Response Project; and Amadou Sall, CEO of the Institut Pasteur-Dakar.
Panelists identified building a sustainable health security infrastructure amid major changes like urbanization and generating investments to prevent global health threats ahead of time as the greatest challenges to global health policy.
Since the Ebola outbreak, Sall noted that capabilities have been developed to detect and diagnose the virus in the same day. However, response to new outbreaks remains “a process” that includes gaps, he said.