Global Health Security Strategy: Biden’s Ambitious Plan to Fortify World Against Pandemics

Global Health Security Strategy

To ensure that people are protected from the scourge of new epidemics, the Biden administration launches the “U.S. Global Health Security Strategy”

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration launched the “U.S. Global Health Security Strategy” on Tuesday (April 16) to protect the health, lives, and economic security of the American people and people around the world.

“President Biden began his administration determined to guide our country through the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure we emerge stronger,” the White House said in a statement.

Key Concepts

• The Biden administration has launched the “U.S. Global Health Security Strategy” to protect the health, lives, and economic security of people worldwide.
• The strategy aims to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and work towards a world free from pandemics.
• It emphasizes using science-based methods and leveraging the whole government to strengthen global health security.
• The strategy focuses on country-driven action, resources, and inclusivity to better prepare for and respond to health emergencies.
• The White House has expanded the US global health security partners from 19 to 50 countries to build and strengthen capabilities in key areas of global health security.
• The US will support global policy efforts, promote innovation, and provide rapid response to global health emergencies.
• The goal is to enhance global health security and build core capabilities in at least 100 low- and middle-income countries to combat epidemics.
• The US is committed to integrating development programs and strengthening research networks to improve global health security.

The White House statement said that the COVID-19 epidemic has severely impacted every person, every community, and every country, resulting in millions of deaths, tremendous social destruction, and economic losses of trillions of dollars around the world.

“From Day One, the President has directed his administration to protect the American people from future health threats, while recognizing that biological threats emerging anywhere could evolve into health emergencies around the world,” the statement said.

The White House noted that over the past three years, the Biden administration has actively promoted an ambitious vision for a world free from pandemics or other health security threats. Although the United States has made significant progress in this regard in the past three years, there is still much that needs to be done in the future.

The White House’s newly launched “U.S. Global Health Security Strategy” advocates using the whole government to strengthen global health security using science-based methods.

The new health security strategy builds on progress made since 2019, draws on the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is designed to achieve the 2022 National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan and the cross-party support of the 2022 Global Health Security and International Conference. The goals set out in the Epidemic Preparedness, Preparedness, and Response Act chart the way forward.

The strategy centers on country-driven action, resources, and inclusivity to ensure the world is better prepared to prevent and respond to health emergencies, including pandemics. The strategy also envisions U.S. leadership in promoting global action toward shared goals, including greater investments and commitments from other countries.

The White House pointed out that the 2024 U.S. Global Health Security Strategy lists three goals to guide the United States in promoting the global health security agenda:

Strengthening global health security capabilities through bilateral cooperation. The most effective way to mitigate the impact of health and safety threats is to prevent, detect, and control these threats at their source. The strategy focuses on working with other countries around the world to ensure they are already better equipped to prevent, detect, and respond to global health security threats.

The White House announced on Tuesday that the United States’ global health security partners have expanded from 19 to 50 countries. Over the next five years, the United States will work with these 50 countries to build, strengthen, and maintain a certain level of capabilities that have been clearly achieved in at least five areas of global health security.

Accelerate political commitment, financial support, and leadership to achieve health security. The United States will work with partners to accelerate and maintain political leadership, commitment, and financial support for general security at the local, national, regional, and global levels.

Over the next five years, the United States will also continue to promote global policy efforts, including negotiating a pandemic agreement and targeted revisions to the International Health Regulations (IHR), supporting relevant agencies to promote innovation and providing reliable public health guidance It also implements rapid response to the global health economic situation and accelerates the fulfillment of the Group of Seven (G7) commitment to assist at least 100 low- and middle-income countries in building core capabilities to fight the epidemic in accordance with the requirements of the International Health Regulations.

Increase linkages between health security and other complementary programs to maximize results. The United States is committed to better-maximizing linkages between global health security programs and other health, development, and security programs. Creating better linkages between these programs will lead to better sustainability, better use of existing resources, and better outcomes.

Over the next five years, the United States will better integrate and leverage global health programs and better integrate development programs, including those in humanitarian and disaster response, food security, water sanitation, and community leadership.

The United States will further strengthen a single health approach to global health security, including integrating infectious disease data from humans, animals, plants, and the environment, while strengthening research networks, including those that conduct global clinical trials.

The White House stated that these actions combined will make the United States and the world safer from the risks posed by the pandemic and other health security events.