World unprepared for future pandemics: Global Health Security Index 2021

What is the News?

The Global Health Security Index 2021 has been released.

About Global Health Security Index(GHS)

GHS is the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across 195 countries.

Published by: Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The report was developed with Economist Impact. 

Aim: To spur measurable changes in national health security and improve the international capability to address one of the world’s most omnipresent risks: infectious disease outbreaks that can lead to international epidemics and pandemics.

Indicators: The Index assesses countries across 6 categories, 37 indicators, and 171 questions. The six categories are:  

First, Prevention: Prevention of the emergence or release of pathogens.

Second, Detection and Reporting: Early detection and reporting of epidemics of potential international concern.

Third, Rapid Response: Rapid response to and mitigation of the spread of an epidemic.

Fourth, Health System: Sufficient and robust health system to treat the sick and protect health workers.

Fifth, Compliance with International Norms: Commitments to improving national capacity, financing plans to address gaps, and adhering to global norms.

Sixth, Risk Environment: Overall risk environment and country vulnerability to biological threats

Scoring: The overall score (0–100) for each country is a weighted sum of the six categories, in which 100 represents the most favorable health security conditions and 0 represents the least favorable conditions.

What are the key findings of the index?

Global findings: The world’s overall performance on the Index score slipped to 38.9 (out of 100) in 2021 from a score of 40.2 in 2019.

In 2021, no country scored in the top tier of rankings and no country scored above 75.9.

Around 73% of countries did not have the ability to provide expedited approval for medical countermeasures, such as vaccines and antiviral drugs, during a public health emergency.

Close to 79% of the countries assessed had not allocated national funds within the past three years to improve their capacity to address epidemic threats.

Further, around 65% of assessed countries had not published and implemented an overarching national public health emergency response plan for diseases with epidemic or pandemic potential.

Findings related to South Asia: In South Asia, India with a score of 42.8 (out of 100) has slipped by 0.8 points since 2019. But three neighbouring countries — Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives — have improved their score.

Thus, based on these findings, the report concluded that the world remains completely unprepared for future epidemic and pandemic threats. 

Source: This post is based on the article “World unprepared for future pandemics: Global Health Security Index 2021” published in Down To Earth on 10th Dec 2021.