Hl Paper 143 Ii House Of Lords Select Committee On Intergovernmental Organisations Diseases Know No Frontiers How Effective Are Intergovernmental Organisations In Controlling Their Spread Volume Ii

This report, (HLP 143-I, session 2007-08, ISBN 9780104013304) is from a new ad hoc Select Committee on Intergovernmental Organisations and reviews the effectiveness with which such organisations are tackling the global spread of infectious diseases and how the UK's membership is beneficial. The advent of globalisation and changes in human lifestyles have enabled new infections to emerge. The Committee has taken evidence from many organisations including governmental, intergovernmental, charitable and private sources and that the general landscape of international health is crowded and poorly coordinated. Despite this, the Committee believes that the process of coordinating structures has to be evolutionary and that the leadership function must rest with the World Health Organisation. Further, that the WHO's remit and resources should be developed in order to encourage and support collaboration and rationalisation amongst the various bodies. The targeting of specific diseases or groups of diseases needs to be done in coordination with improving the quality and quantity of health systems generally. This coordinated approach is specifically required in the area of infectious disease surveillance, with many developing countries seriously deficient in this respect. The Committee also believes that the focus has been on the treatment of infectious diseases as opposed to prevention, creating an imbalance in investment. There should also be more effective coordination between intergovernmental systems conducting surveillance of human and animal diseases. For Vol. 2, Evidence (see ISBN 9780104013298).

The capacity to conduct international disease outbreak surveillance and share information about outbreaks quickly has empowered both State and Non-State Actors to take an active role in stopping the spread of disease by generating new technical means to identify potential pandemics through the creation of shared reporting platforms. Despite all the rhetoric about the importance of infectious disease surveillance, the concept itself has received relatively little critical attention from academics, practitioners, and policymakers. This book asks leading contributors in the field to engage with five key issues attached to international disease outbreak surveillance - transparency, local engagement, practical needs, integration, and appeal - to illuminate the political effect of these technologies on those who use surveillance, those who respond to surveillance, and those being monitored.

Some developing biotechnologies challenge accepted legal and ethical norms because of the risks they pose. Xenotransplantation (cross-species transplantation) may prolong life but may also harm the xeno-recipient and the public due to its potential to transmit infectious diseases. These trans-boundary diseases emphasise the global nature of advances in health care and highlight the difficulties of identifying, monitoring and regulating such risks and thereby protecting individual and public health. Xenotransplantation raises questions about how uncertainty and risk are understood and accepted, and exposes tensions between private benefit and public health. Where public health is at risk, a precautionary approach informed by the harm principle supports prioritising the latter, but the issues raised by genetically engineered solid organ xenotransplants have not, as yet, been sufficiently discussed. This must occur prior to their clinical introduction because of the necessary changes to accepted norms which are needed to appropriately safeguard individual and public health.

Providing an immediate, contemporary example of a region networking its response to disease outbreak events, this insightful book will appeal to global health governance scholars, students, and practitioners.

The Department for International Development (DFID) launched its new HIV/AIDS Strategy "Achieving Universal Access: the UK's strategy for halting and reversing the spread of HIV in the developing world" in June 2008. DFID is widely acknowledged as a global leader in tackling HIV/AIDS, particularly amongst vulnerable and marginalised groups, including women and children. Its Strategy provides an excellent analysis of the challenges faced in tackling HIV/AIDS effectively. It makes substantial financial commitments, most notably £6 billion over seven years to strengthen health systems in partner countries, and £1 billion over the same period for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Direct and specific HIV/AIDS funding of this kind continues to be necessary to fill the gaps in prevention and treatment services in high-prevalence countries. But the Strategy is strong on rhetoric but weak in communicating how DFID will implement it. There are few measurable targets or indicators of how the Strategy's effectiveness will be assessed. DFID fails to explain how the high-level funding commitments will be broken down by country or sector, making it difficult to understand how implementation will occur on the ground. The Committee has concerns that social protection programmes, which are now DFID's main instrument for assisting children orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, will not be specifically targeted at this vulnerable. The overall aim of the Strategy is universal access to HIV prevention, treatment and care, but the target date for achieving this is only two years away in 2010.

Law and Global Health is the latest volume in the Current Legal Issues series. It contains a broad range of articles from scholars and public health experts dicussing the interaction between law and public health in low-, middle- and high-income countries.