Homeland Preparedness News: U.S. at critical juncture with Global Health Security Agenda
“…On March 26-28, the United States will participate in the next GHSA high-level meeting being held in Tbilisi, Georgia, on biosurveillance of infectious disease threats … ‘Emerging infectious diseases affect developing countries, but they also affect wealthy countries. No country is immune,’ Dr. Anne Schuchat, [then] acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said last week. … ‘We are at a critical time,’ [Jen Kates, vice president and director of global health and HIV policy at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF),] said during a March 12 KFF event to take stock thus far of the U.S. government’s support of global health security. … ‘What we have is a situation where there is episodic and non-permanent influxes [of funding] when there’s an outbreak and a return to these normal levels that many experts say are insufficient,’ Kates said. … In fact, much of the Ebola funding for the GHSA — which primarily went to the CDC — is due to expire at the end of fiscal year (FY) 2019, she added. … Despite the encroaching funding cliff, GHSA efforts continue and the U.S. will participate in the upcoming meeting in Georgia, which is the lead country for the Real-Time Surveillance Action Package, one of the 11 GHSA Action Packages. … Such ongoing global health security collaboration is vital, CDC’s Schuchat said in her keynote address during the March 12 KFF event in Washington, D.C…” (Riley, 3/21).