Today, the White House launched the U.S. Global Health Security Strategy (GHSS) to protect the health, lives, and economic well-being of the American people and people throughout the world.
President Biden came to office determined to guide our country through - and ensure we emerged stronger from - the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic profoundly affected every individual, community and country, causing millions of deaths, significant societal disruptions, and trillions of dollars in economic losses globally. Since day one, the President has directed his Administration to protect the American people from future health threats, recognizing that a biological threat anywhere can turn into a health emergency everywhere. Over the past three years, the Biden-Harris Administration has actively advanced a bold agenda to achieve the vision of a world free from pandemics and other health security threats. While the United States has made notable progress over the past three years, there is more work ahead.
THE NEW GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY STRATEGY
The new Global Health Security Strategy articulates a whole-of-government, science-based approach to strengthening global health security.
Building on progress achieved since 2019 and incorporating lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Global Health Security Strategy lays out a path to deliver on the goals in the 2022 National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan and the bipartisan Global Health Security and International Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Act of 2022, which was enacted as part of the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023. It places county-driven action, equity, and inclusion at its core to ensure the world is better prepared to prevent and respond to health emergencies, including pandemics. The Strategy also envisions using United States leadership to drive global action toward shared goals, including stronger investment and commitment by other countries.
The 2024 U.S. Global Health Security Strategy sets out three goals to guide the United States' affirmative agenda to advance global health security:
- Strengthen Global Health Security Capacities through Bilateral Partnerships. The most effective way to mitigate the impact of health security threats is to prevent, detect and contain them at their source. The Strategy focuses on working with countries around the world to ensure they are better able to prevent, detect, and respond to global health security threats. We are announcing today that the United States has expanded our formal global health security partnerships from 19 countries to 50 countries. Over the next five years, the United States will:
- Work with these 50 partners to build, further strengthen, and sustain a level of demonstrated capacity in at least five GHS areas;
- Promote country-led processes as essential to achieving sustainable progress toward the GHS goals;
- Incorporate gender-responsive and social inclusion considerations into GHS programming, to reduce public health risks and adverse health impacts on marginalized populations; and
- Track progress toward closing gaps in preparedness and response capacities, and share those results publicly.
These will further accelerate country implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR) and contribute towards achieving the G7 Pact for Pandemic Readiness Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) targets.
- Catalyze Political Commitment, Financing, and Leadership to Achieve Health Security. The United States works alongside partners to catalyze and sustain political leadership, commitment, and financing in health security at local, national, regional, and global levels. Over the next five years the United States will:
- Continue to drive efforts to strengthen global policies, including through negotiations on a Pandemic Accord and targeted amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR);
- Support fit-for-purpose institutions that can drive innovation, offer reliable public health guidance, and implement a rapid response to global health emergencies;
- Further strengthen our efforts to expand equitable access to medical countermeasures; and
- Accelerate commitments made by the G7 including achieving the milestones of the G7 Pact for Pandemic Readiness to provide support to assist at least 100 low- and middle-income countries in building the core capacities required in the IHR.
The United States will also continue to deliver on the commitment to transform financing for global health security. The COVID-19 response highlighted limitations in the GHS financing ecosystem. In a health emergency, countries need to be able to quickly access financing to fortify their health systems, procure medical countermeasures, and launch an effective response. The United States is the world's leading investor in health security, and it is a top priority of the United States to collaborate with countries, regional and multilateral partners, including public and private sector organizations, to identify and strengthen solutions to enhance access to financing for pandemic preparedness and response. To overcome the cycle of crisis and complacency in investing in health security capacity, the United States led the way to establish the historic Pandemic Fund in 2022, and we are dedicated to working with all partners to ensure the Fund excels in its mission to support countries most in need. Simultaneously, the United States continues to support efforts to transform international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, and to clarify and strengthen the pandemic preparedness and response efforts of multilateral development banks and development financing institutions to better address crises, including pandemics.
- Increase Linkages Between Health Security and Complementary Programs to Maximize Impact. The United States is committed to better maximizing linkages between global health security programs and other health, development and security programs. Building stronger relationships between these programs will lead to more sustainability, make better use of existing resources, and drive better outcomes. Over the next five years, the United States will:
- Better integrate and leverage global health programs – including PEPFAR, TB, PMI, and health system strengthening efforts including regulatory systems and MCM manufacture, procurement and delivery;
- Better integrate and leverage development programs, including humanitarian and disaster response; food security; water sanitation and hygiene; and community leadership;
- Further strengthen a One Health approach to GHS, including integrating infectious disease data from human, animal, plant and environment sectors; and
- Strengthen research networks, including for global clinical trials.
Collectively, these actions will make the United States, and the world, safer from the risk posed by pandemics and other health security events.
