Recurrent Ebola outbreaks in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo: A wake-up call to scale up the integrated disease surveillance and response strategy.

Ebola virus disease (EVD) is a dangerous viral zoonotic hemorrhagic fever caused by a deadly pathogenic filovirus. Frugivorous bats are recognized as being the natural reservoir, playing a pivotal role in the epidemiological dynamics. Since its discovery in 1976, the disease has been shown to be endemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). So far, thirteen outbreaks have occurred, and EVD has been prioritized in the national surveillance system. Additionally, EVD is targeted by the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) strategy in DRC. The IDSR strategy is a collaborative, comprehensive and innovative surveillance approach developed and adopted by WHO's African region member states (WHO/Afro) to strengthen their surveillance capacity at all levels for early detection, response and recovery from priority diseases and public health events. We provide an overview of the IDSR strategy and the issues that can prevent its expected outcome (early detection for timely response) in eastern DRC where there are still delays in EVD outbreaks detection and weaknesses in response capacity and health crisis recovery. Therefore, this paper highlights the advantages linked to the implementation of the IDSR and calls for an urgent need to scale up its materialization against the recurrent Ebola outbreaks in eastern DRC. Consequently, the paper advocates for rapidly addressing the obstacles hindering its operationalization and adapting the approach to the local context using implementation science.

Challenges and Approaches of the Global Governance of Public Health Under COVID-19.

Public health events, as the common concern faced by the international community, call for the joint response from all mankind. The outbreak of the COVID-19 has highlighted the problems confronting the global governance of international public health, such as limited functions of international organizations and difficulties in achieving objectives, poor collaboration between governance subjects and their limited performance, overlapping legal basis of governance and blurred core function, and lack of solutions to special problems. The corresponding approaches can be taken to improve the efficiency of the governance of global public health, including supporting the role of international organizations to achieve the objectives, enhancing coordination among international governance subjects to form synergy, promoting the compliance with IHR2005 to avoid conflict of law application and upholding the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind to jointly respond to the special problems.

Canada's response to international travel during COVID-19 pandemic - a media analysis.

BACKGROUND: The media play a critical role in informing the public about the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, international travel has been a highly contested subject at both the international and national levels. We examined Canadian media reporting on international travel restrictions during the pandemic, how these restrictions aligned with the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005), and how the narrative around international travel evolved over time. METHODS: We analysed articles from Canada's top three national newspapers by circulation - The Globe and Mail, The National Post and The Toronto Star - published between Jan 1, 2020 - May 31, 2020. Our search yielded a total of 378 articles across the three newspapers. After removing duplicates and screening the remaining articles, we included a total of 62 articles for the analysis. We conducted a qualitative media content analysis by using an inductive coding approach. RESULTS: Three major themes were identified within the articles. These included: 1) The role of scientific and expert evidence in implementing travel restrictions; 2) Federal legislation, regulation and enforcement of international travel measures; and 3) Compliance with World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines in travel restriction policy- and decision-making. The federal government relied primarily on scientific evidence for implementing international travel restrictions and fully exercised its powers under the Quarantine Act to enforce travel regulations and comply with the IHR 2005. The government embraced a rules-based international order by following WHO recommendations on international travel, contributing to a delay in border closure and travel restrictions until mid-March. CONCLUSION: The media focussed significantly on international travel-related issues during the early phase of the pandemic. The dominant media narrative surrounded the need for earlier travel restrictions against international travel.

Is countries' transparency associated with gaps between countries' self and external evaluations for IHR core capacity?

BACKGROUND: This study aims to evaluate the gap between countries' self-evaluation and external evaluation regarding core capacity of infectious disease control required by International Health Regulations and the influence factors of the gap. METHODS: We collected countries' self-evaluated scores (International Health Regulations Monitoring tool, IHRMT) of 2016 and 2017, and external evaluation scores (Joint External Evaluation, JEE) from WHO website on 4rd and 27rd November, 2018. There were 127 and 163 countries with IHRMT scores in 2016 and in 2017, and 74 countries with JEE scores included in the analysis. The gap between countries' self-evaluation and external evaluation was represented by the difference between condensed IHR scores and JEE. Civil liberties (CL) scores were collected as indicators of the transparency of each country. The Human Development Index (HDI) and data indicating the density of physicians and nurses (HWD) were collected to reflect countries' development and health workforce statuses. Then, chi-square test and logistic regression were performed to determine the correlation between the gap of IHRMT and JEE, and civil liberties, human development, and health workforce status. RESULTS: Countries' self-evaluation scores significantly decreased from 2016 to 2017. Countries' external evaluation scores are consistently 1 to 1.5 lower than self-evaluation scores. There were significantly more countries with high HDI status, high CL status and high HWD status in groups with bigger gap between IHRMT and JEE. And countries with higher HDI status presented a higher risk of having bigger gap between countries' self and external scores (OR = 3.181). CONCLUSION: Our study result indicated that countries' transparency represented by CL status do play a role in the gap between IHR and JEE scores. But HDI status is the key factor which significantly associated with the gap. The main reason for the gap in the current world is the different interpretation of evaluation of high HDI countries, though low CL countries tended to over-scored their capacity.

Epidemic surveillance in a low resource setting: lessons from an evaluation of the Solomon Islands syndromic surveillance system, 2017.

BACKGROUND: Solomon Islands is one of the least developed countries in the world. Recognising that timely detection of outbreaks is needed to enable early and effective response to disease outbreaks, the Solomon Islands government introduced a simple syndromic surveillance system in 2011. We conducted the first evaluation of the system and the first exploration of a national experience within the broader multi-country Pacific Syndromic Surveillance System to determine if it is meeting its objectives and to identify opportunities for improvement. METHODS: We used a multi-method approach involving retrospective data collection and statistical analysis, modelling, qualitative research and observational methods. RESULTS: We found that the system was well accepted, highly relied upon and designed to account for contextual limitations. We found the syndromic algorithm used to identify outbreaks was moderately sensitive, detecting 11.8% (IQR: 6.3-25.0%), 21.3% (IQR: 10.3-36.8%), 27.5% (IQR: 12.8-52.3%) and 40.5% (IQR: 13.5-65.7%) of outbreaks that caused small, moderate, large and very large increases in case presentations to health facilities, respectively. The false alert rate was 10.8% (IQR: 4.8-24.5%). Rural coverage of the system was poor. Limited workforce, surveillance resourcing and other 'upstream' health system factors constrained performance. CONCLUSIONS: The system has made a significant contribution to public health security in Solomon Islands, but remains insufficiently sensitive to detect small-moderate sized outbreaks and hence should not be relied upon as a stand-alone surveillance strategy. Rather, the system should sit within a complementary suite of early warning surveillance activities including event-based, in-patient- and laboratory-based surveillance methods. Future investments need to find a balance between actions to address the technical and systems issues that constrain performance while maintaining simplicity and hence sustainability.

CDC Support for Global Public Health Emergency Management.

Recent pandemics and rapidly spreading outbreaks of infectious diseases have illustrated the interconnectedness of the world and the importance of improving the international community's ability to effectively respond. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), building on a strong foundation of lessons learned through previous emergencies, international recognition, and human and technical expertise, has aspired to support nations around the world to strengthen their public health emergency management (PHEM) capacity. PHEM principles streamline coordination and collaboration in responding to infectious disease outbreaks, which align with the core capacities outlined in the International Health Regulations 2005. CDC supports PHEM by providing in-country technical assistance, aiding the development of plans and procedures, and providing fellowship opportunities for public health emergency managers. To this end, CDC partners with US agencies, international partners, and multilateral organizations to support nations around the world to reduce illness and death from outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Prioritizing Zoonoses for Global Health Capacity Building-Themes from One Health Zoonotic Disease Workshops in 7 Countries, 2014-2016.

Zoonotic diseases represent critical threats to global health security. Effective mitigation of the impact of endemic and emerging zoonotic diseases of public health importance requires multisectoral collaboration and interdisciplinary partnerships. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created the One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization Tool to help countries identify zoonotic diseases of greatest national concern using input from representatives of human health, agriculture, environment, and wildlife sectors. We review 7 One Health Zoonotic Disease Prioritization Tool workshops conducted during 2014-2016, highlighting workshop outcomes, lessons learned, and shared themes from countries implementing this process. We also describe the tool's ability to help countries focus One Health capacity-building efforts to appropriately prevent, detect, and respond to zoonotic disease threats.

Contributions of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Implementing the Global Health Security Agenda in 17 Partner Countries.

The Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), a partnership of nations, international organizations, and civil society, was launched in 2014 with a mission to build countries' capacities to respond to infectious disease threats and to foster global compliance with the International Health Regulations (IHR 2005). The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) assists partner nations to improve IHR 2005 capacities and achieve GHSA targets. To assess progress through these CDC-supported efforts, we analyzed country activity reports dating from April 2015 through March 2017. Our analysis shows that CDC helped 17 Phase I countries achieve 675 major GHSA accomplishments, particularly in the cross-cutting areas of public health surveillance, laboratory systems, workforce development, and emergency response management. CDC's engagement has been critical to these accomplishments, but sustained support is needed until countries attain IHR 2005 capacities, thereby fostering national and regional health protection and ensuring a world safer and more secure from global health threats.

Planning for Pandemics: Lessons From the Past Decade.

It is now 10 years since the disease we now know as SARS--severe acute respiratory syndrome--caused more than 700 deaths around the world and made more than 8,000 people ill. More recently, in 2009 the global community experienced the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century--the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. This paper analyses the major developments in international public health law relating to infectious diseases in the period since SARS and considers their implications for pandemic planning.

Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) has Declared Twice in 2014; Polio and Ebola at the Top.

BACKGROUND: The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa and the large scale wild Polio virus outbreak in several countries are the top most issues among international public health and scientific communities' debates and concerns. These two outbreaks were judged to be declared as Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) during 2014. This is the first time ever to have such circumstance of two PHEICs at the same time. DISCUSSION: PHEIC, which has to be declared by WHO Director General after a recommendation of IHR Emergency Committee; is observed to start in countries with fragile health system and conflict areas. Then it rapidly spread to threaten the global public health. The year 2014 has uniquely witnessed declaration of two events as PHEIC according to IHR (2005); Polio and Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). Both outbreaks are caused by viruses such as H1N1 which was previously declared as PHEIC in 2009. SUMMARY: Public Health Emergencies of International Concern in 2014 occurred in countries with weak health systems and conflicts and threatening the whole globe. International collaborative work is required to contain the event and to mobilize resources/capacities between countries. Moreover, public health surveillance systems as core capacity for IHR (2005) should be strengthened in all countries with focus on those with limited capacity and ongoing conflicts. The ultimate aim is timely detection of potential PHEIC events in the future along with early preparedness and response plans.

Building core capacities at the designated points of entry according to the International Health Regulations 2005: a review of the progress and prospects in Taiwan.

BACKGROUND: As designated points of entry (PoEs) play a critical role in preventing the transmission of international public health risks, huge efforts have been invested in Taiwan to improve the core capacities specified in the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR 2005). This article reviews how Taiwan strengthened the core capacities at the Taoyuan International Airport (TIA) and the Port of Kaohsiung (PoK) by applying a new, practicable model. DESIGN: An IHR PoE program was initiated for implementing the IHR core capacities at designated PoEs. The main methods of this program were 1) identifying the designated PoEs according to the pre-determined criteria, 2) identifying the competent authority for each health measure, 3) building a close collaborative relationship between stakeholders from the central and PoE level, 4) designing three stages of systematic assessment using the assessment tool published by the World Health Organization (WHO), and 5) undertaking action plans targeting the gaps identified by the assessments. RESULTS: Results of the self-assessment, preliminary external assessment, and follow-up external assessment revealed a continuous progressive trend at the TIA (86, 91, and 100%, respectively), and at the PoK (77, 97, and 99.9%, respectively). The results of the follow-up external assessment indicated that both these designated PoEs already conformed to the IHR requirements. These achievements were highly associated with strong collaboration, continuous empowerment, efficient resource integration, and sustained commitments. CONCLUSIONS: Considering that many countries had requested for an extension on the deadline to fulfill the IHR 2005 core capacity requirements, Taiwan's experiences can be a source of learning for countries striving to fully implement these requirements. Further, in order to broaden the scope of public health protection into promoting global security, Taiwan will keep its commitments on multisectoral cooperation, human resource capacity building, and maintaining routine and emergency capacities.

Challenges to the implementation of International Health Regulations (2005) on preventing infectious diseases: experience from Julius Nyerere International Airport, Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: The International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) is a legal instrument binding all World Health Organization (WHO) member States. It aims to prevent and control public health emergencies of international concern. Country points of entry (POEs) have been identified as potential areas for effective interventions to prevent the transmission of infectious diseases across borders. The agreement postulates that member states will strengthen core capacities detailed in the IHR (2005), including those specified for the POE. This study intended to assess the challenges faced in implementing the IHR (2005) requirements at Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA), Dar es Salaam. DESIGN: A cross-sectional, descriptive study, employing qualitative methods, was conducted at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW), WHO, and JNIA. In-depth interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs) and documentary reviews were used to obtain relevant information. Respondents were purposively enrolled into the study. Thematic analysis was used to generate study findings. RESULTS: Several challenges that hamper implementation of the IHR (2005) were identified: (1) none of the 42 Tanzanian POEs have been specifically designated to implement IHR (2005). (2) Implementation of the IHR (2005) at the POE was complicated as it falls under various uncoordinated government departments. Although there were clear communication channels at JNIA that enhanced reliable risk communication, the airport lacked isolated rooms specific for emergence preparedness and response to public health events. CONCLUSIONS: JNIA is yet to develop adequate core capacities required for implementation of the IHR (2005). There is a need for policy managers to designate JNIA to implement IHR (2005) and ensure that public health policies, legislations, guidelines, and practice at POE are harmonized to improve international travel and trade. Policy makers and implementers should also ensure that implementation of the IHR (2005) follow the policy implementation framework, particularly the contextual interaction theory which calls for the availability of adequate resources (inputs) and well-organized process for the successful implementation of the policy.

Progress in global surveillance and response capacity 10 years after severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Ten years have elapsed since the World Health Organization issued its first global alert for an unexplained illness named severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the international response to this new global microbial threat. While global surveillance and response capacity for public health threats have been strengthened, critical gaps remain. Of 194 World Health Organization member states that signed on to the International Health Regulations (2005), <20% had achieved compliance with the core capacities required by the deadline in June 2012. Lessons learned from the global SARS outbreak highlight the need to avoid complacency, strengthen efforts to improve global capacity to address the next pandemic using all available 21st century tools, and support research to develop new treatment options, countermeasures, and insights while striving to address the global inequities that are the root cause of many of these challenges.