{"id":7966,"date":"2015-08-26T11:19:06","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T11:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/?p=7966"},"modified":"2015-08-27T11:26:37","modified_gmt":"2015-08-27T11:26:37","slug":"ebola-response-panel-studying-ways-to-enforce-compliance-with-key-un-legal-health-instrument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/blog\/2015\/08\/ebola-response-panel-studying-ways-to-enforce-compliance-with-key-un-legal-health-instrument\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebola response panel studying ways to enforce compliance with key Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ legal health instrument"},"content":{"rendered":"

A special United Nations international panel reviewing the role of existing international health regulations in the response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is studying the use of possible sanctions and other mechanisms to ensure better compliance with what it described as \u201ca very important legal instrument in order to improve the global health security.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn many countries, even in the Ministry of Health\u2026 sometimes the regulations about the International Health Regulations are not well known, so I think that there is a question of information communication, there is a question of capacities, there is a question of compliance to the rules; that\u2019s very important,\u201d said Didier Houssin, newly-elected Chair of the Review Committee on the Role of International Health Regulations in the Ebola Outbreak and Response.<\/p>\n

The 68th World Health Assembly in May 2015 set a mandate for a Review Committee on response to the Ebola outbreak, which has claimed more than 11,300 lives to date mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, to recommend steps to improve the functioning, transparency, effectiveness and efficiency of the regulations, and to strengthen preparedness and response for future emergencies with health consequences.<\/p>\n

In a press conference after the committee\u2019s two-day meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, Mr. Houssin said the review will divided by three working groups \u2013 one on communications to define the flow of information from the World Health Organization (WHO) to member States, a second to address capacities, epidemiology, points of entry, surveillance and a third to evaluate member states\u2019 compliance to rules and governance of international health regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe International Health Regulations\u2026are a very important legal instrument in order to improve the global health security; that\u2019s an instrument for public health to protect the health of the population in the world and it\u2019s existing since several decades and it has been modified in 2005,\u201d Mr. Houssin said. \u201cAnd, of course, it has strengths and weaknesses and, recently, the Ebola outbreak suggested that probably there were things to improve in these Regulations.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the committee requested from the WHO to inform it about the various methods of compliance which can be used in international laws, Mr. Houssin said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some sectors, for example, there is almost no imposition, nothing imperative; for example, human rights,\u201d he said. \u201cOn the other hand, you have, at the other extreme, weapons and nuclear activities where there are sanctions, controls [and] inspections. Well, with the International Health Regulations there is no sanction but we observe that there is not a good compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we have to find the right balance and probably encouraging mechanisms, incentives, publicity, transparency, benchmarking are the ways that we will explore but at this stage it\u2019s too early to say what will be our recommendation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to explore all the possibilities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the recommendations are expected to be presented to the next World Health Assembly that is in May 2016.<\/p>\n

In her opening address to the committee, WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said on Monday that \u201cthe aftermath of the Ebola outbreak likely represents our best chance ever to transform the world\u2019s response to epidemics and other health emergencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

via Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ News Centre<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A special United Nations international panel reviewing the role of existing international health regulations in the response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is studying the use of possible sanctions and other mechanisms to ensure better compliance with what it described as \u201ca very important legal instrument in order to improve the global health security.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":230,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[2246,622,2306,403,2301,2251,430,2241,1420],"class_list":["post-7966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-news","tag-dr-margaret-chan","tag-ebola","tag-ebola-outbreak-and-response","tag-geneva","tag-international-health-regulations","tag-switzerland","tag-united-nations","tag-who-director-general","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/sustainabledevelopment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}