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ABSTRACT
It is important for all countries to secure themselves against infectious disease threats, including potential global catastrophic biological risks. The Global Health Security Index (GHSI), first published in 2019, is a comprehensive, objective assessment of health security capabilities across 195 States Parties to the International Health Regulations. The GHSI is a broader assessment than the World Health Organization Joint External Evaluation and emphasises public documentation of preparedness as well as sustainable capabilities. New Zealand scored 54/100 on the GHSI (35th in the world). But also worryingly, the range of scores for New Zealand's Pacific neighbours was 19.2-27.8, highlighting potential regional vulnerabilities. Clearly, the New Zealand Government needs to do more to ensure its own optimal preparedness for global biological threats, and document these preparations to assure the international community. But it should also provide additional overseas development assistance (bringing this assistance up to 0.7% of GNI as per UN recommendations) and work with Pacific Nations to enhance health security in the region.
Recent events such as the 2019 measles epidemic in New Zealand and the South Pacific,1 as well as the emergence of a novel coronavirus in China in 2019 (COVID-19),2-4 underscore that all countries must ensure capabilities to prevent, detect and rapidly respond to public health emergencies. Countries need to have a robust health system, be compliant with international norms, and work to improve their risk environment. The GHSI is the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of these health security capabilities across 195 States Parties to the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005 and was published in 2019.5 In this viewpoint article, we present New Zealand's GHSI score along with a breakdown of items where New Zealand scored poorly. We also profile the results from Pacific Nations, with the aim of highlighting ways in which New Zealand health policymakers might act to enhance regional health security.
Global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs)
The GHSI emphasises the importance of addressing global catastrophic biological risks. Catastrophic biological risks have been defined as: "those events in which biological agents-whether naturally emerging or re-emerging, deliberately created and released, or laboratory engineered and escaped-could lead to sudden, extraordinary, widespread disaster beyond the collective capability of national and international governments and the private sector to control. If unchecked, GCBRs would...