New Global Health Security Agenda Launched by International Agreement

A renewed international effort is being made to improve how the world detects and responds to disease outbreaks after growing concern prompted U.S. officials to take action.

According to the American Forces Press Service (AFPS), U.S. administration officials are meeting with representatives from federal agencies, world health agencies, and 26 other nations to discuss international disease control.

Representatives from the National Security Council, the Defense Department, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) held a conference call yesterday to disclose the priorities of what U.S. officials are calling the Global Health Security Agenda.

The goal of the new effort is to bolster local disease monitoring, testing, and emergency response in at-risk countries through the cooperation of the 27 countries that are in on the plan. The nations involved include the U.S., the U.K., Japan, South Korea, China, India, the Netherlands, and Norway to name a few.

The World Health Organization (WHO) will also be taking part in the discussions and helping to organize the efforts.

Back in 2007, the WHO had set a five-year deadline for countries to meet acceptable levels of disease response and containment capability. By 2012, 80 percent of the countries involved did not meet the WHO deadline for preparedness, U.S. official Laura Holgate explained during yesterday's press conference.

"We looked around the world and said, 'This is not something the United States can do alone,'" Holgate said.

It is now 2014, and disease continues to fill global headlines. According to the CDC, the U.S. is already involved in global disease prevention, fighting diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis, and a whole host of mosquito-borne viruses on foreign soil, but the international cooperation of 26 other nations would certainly help.

New strains of avian flu coming out of Asia, a new respiratory virus that has recently emerged in the Middle East, and some old baddies that have reemerged in the past years are certainly top targets for the Global Health Security Agenda.

The agreement has set a new five year plan, hoping to meet new International Health Regulations set by the WHO and the 27 nations.

According to AFPS, the U.S. will be adding $45 million to the CDC budget explicitly for global health security efforts in 2015.