Protection from infectious diseases has become a key issue not only in Swiss, but also in international health policy in recent years. Under the terms of the WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHR), which are at the center of these efforts, states must identify and contain outbreaks at the earliest possible stage. However, the global implementation of the regulations must be further improved. By Ursula Jasper SARS, MERS, H1N1, Ebola, Zika – the list of infectious diseases that have alarmed the public and challenged researchers around the globe in recent years is a long one. Today more than ever, communicable diseases are regarded as serious potential threats to national and global society. For instance, the WHO in 2007 described the danger of a new type of influenza virus as “the most feared security threat” (World Health Report 2007, p. 45).
Health experts warn that increasing global mobility as well as interdependencies and interconnections due to flows of trade and goods, migration, and tourism create the conditions for a spread of global, i.e. pandemic diseases within a short time. This means that purely national efforts to combat diseases are ineffective, and that transnational, joint approaches are necessary. Therefore, after years of negotiations, the WHO passed a new set of International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2005. They stipulate that all WHO member states must build up national early detection and warning systems to be able to discover and respond in a timely manner to potential cross-border pandemics – known as Public Health Emergencies of International Concern – on their territories.
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