Examining National Public Health Law to Realize the Global Health Security Agenda

Abstract

Where the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) seeks to accelerate progress toward a world safe and secure from public health emergencies, the realization of GHSA 'Action Packages' will require national governments to establish necessary legal frameworks to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease. By analyzing the scope and content of existing national legislation in each of the GHSA Action Packages, this comparative cross-national research has developed a framework that disaggregates the legal domains necessary to meet each Action Package target. Based upon these legal domains, this study developed an assessment tool that can identify specific attributes of national legislation. This article applies this tool to assess the legal environment in twenty Sub-Saharan African countries, examining the content of laws across the GHSA Action Packages, analyzing the legal domains necessary to implement each Action Package, and highlighting specific national laws that reflect attributes of each legal domain.

Universal access to essential medicines as part of the right to health: a cross-national comparison of national laws, medicines policies, and health system indicators

“…To the author’s knowledge, this thesis is currently the most robust academic endeavour to develop the evidence base to study the effect of national law and policy on access to medicines in LMICs. A large body of public health law implementation and evaluation research exists, albeit mostly in the US context [ 28 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 ]. These studies are often based on reliable online repositories of legislation and policy in English, implementation mechanisms described in scholarship and understood in practice, and robust datasets of outcome measures- all of which are commonly unavailable or underdeveloped in LMIC contexts.…”

Has Global Health Law Risen to Meet the COVID-19 Challenge? Revisiting the International Health Regulations to Prepare for Future Threats

“…Yet despite these evolving efforts to support states in building public health capacities and meeting IHR responsibilities, many states continue to shoulder weak health systems with inadequate legal capacity. 12…”

Assessing National Public Health Law to Prevent Infectious Disease Outbreaks: Immunization Law as a Basis for Global Health Security

“…8 Public health law is necessary to assure widespread vaccination, 9 and global governance institutions have sought to coordinate national immunization laws as a framework for global health security. 10 These law reforms have been supported by national governments, international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), private organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and public-private partnerships such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. 11 Yet, even as immunization is increasingly seen as a human right for all, millions continue to die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases, 12 creating an imperative under the GHSA to reform immunization law as a basis to facilitate vaccination and prevent disease.…”

“…The GHSA is premised on a need for strong national health systems, which require robust national legal frameworks that implement the minimum standards set out under global health policy. 23 Although many nations have enacted laws to promote public health, existing laws may not be adequate to address the rate at which infectious disease epidemics can spread a cross borders. 24 Gaps in global health law have hampered responses to recent public health emergencies — including the SARS, Ebola, and Zika outbreaks — making it difficult, among other things, to quarantine infected or suspected cases, prescribe novel treatments, and coordinate responses across nations.…”