Understanding global security - Peter Hough

HEALTH THREATS TO SECURITY
• Globalization may be a cause of global health problems but it also offers
opportunities for enhancing global health security through the harnessing of
transnational information flows to disseminate medical knowledge and by
empowering the WHO to coordinate policy.
1 Entomologist Kirkby Stafford is reported in the National Geographic as saying that the
population of deer in Connecticut, USA has risen from 12 in 1896 to 76,000 in 2002.
2 Some of the regions are only loosely geographical; ‘Eastern Mediterranean’ comprises
most of the Arab world, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan; South East Asia includes India,
and North Korea; Australia and New Zealand are linked to much of East Asia in the
‘Western Pacific region’.
3 This estimate is based on N. Gay and W. Edmunds (1998) ‘Developed Countries Should
Pay for Hepatitis B Vaccine in Developing Countries’, British Medical Journal, 316: 1457.
Notes
Recommended reading
Benatar, S., Daar, A. and Singer, P. (2003) ‘Global Health Ethics: the Rationale for Mutual
Caring’, International Affairs 79(1): 107–138.
Heymann, D. (2001) ‘The Fall and Rise of Infectious Diseases’, Georgetown Journal of
International Affairs 2(2), Summer/Fall: 7–14.
Koivusalo, M. and Ollila, E. (1997) Making a Healthy World. Agencies, Actors and Policies in
International Health, London & New York: Zed Books.
Pirages, D. and Runci, P. (2000) ‘Ecological Interdependence and the Spread of Infectious
Disease’, in M. Cusimano (ed.) Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda, New
York: St Martin: 177–193.
Weiss, R. (2002) ‘War on Disease’, National Geographic February: 5–31.
Useful web links
Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization: http://www.vaccinealliance.org/home/
index.php
Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria: http://www.globalfundatm.org/
TRP.html
UNAIDS: http://www.unaids.org/
World Health Organization: http://www.who.int/en/
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