Since the release of the 2019 GHS Index, New Zealand has made improvements in detection and reporting and compliance with international norms, which led to it jumping up 12 positions in rank. In particular, New Zealand showed increased capacity across laboratory system strength and quality, supply chains, and epidemiological…
Preparedness, capacity, and capability are important concepts to the GHS Index. The UN and WHO define preparedness as the ability of governments, professional response organizations, communities, and individuals to anticipate, detect, and respond effectively to, and recover from, the impact of likely, imminent, or current health emergencies, hazards, events, or…
With more reported cases and more deaths than any other country, the United States’ poor response to the COVID-19 pandemic shocked the world. As documented by the 2019 GHS Index, the United States had more global health security capacities in place to prevent and respond to epidemics and pandemics than…
COVID-19 has demonstrated the inadequacy of current global capacities to help countries respond to pandemics. The pervasive and protracted nature of pandemics distinguishes them from epidemics, which are more limited in geographic scope. In an epidemic, unaffected nations may be able to contribute funds, personnel, and other resources to assist…
Although other frameworks exist for measuring public health capacities, the GHS Index uniquely offers a broad assessment of preparedness gaps in all 195 States Parties to the International Health Regulations (IHR[2005]), the global treaty governing country requirements to mitigate cross-border health threats. The GHS Index is built upon three fundamental…
The Global Health Security (GHS) Index1 demonstrates that the world is not prepared for epidemics and pandemics. To identify countries that are more vulnerable to the spread of an outbreak like COVID-19, the GHS Index team analyzed a subset of indicators within the GHS Index against global flight data2. This…