Module 8
The concept of a country being “unprepared” to deal with an epidemic came into the
national spotlight in the US, following the threat of avian flu H5N1 in 2005, whose infection in
humans can cause severe illness and has a high mortality rate. The United States then developed
a $7.1 billion-dollar strategy against a pandemic-level public health crisis. But critics argued that
the heavy realization on pharmaceutical solutions that didn’t effectively guarantee that the
pandemic could be prevented of resolved. Historical context has seen the severity of pandemics
in the United States, as the first major polio epidemic that took place in 1916 hit a peak in 1952
and in which more than 3,000 deaths were reported. As the public in the United States began
disregarding the threat of an epidemic or pandemic as secondary in an era which was marked by
world wars, and as a result, officials were not pressured to create plans or strategies to deal with
this type of public health disaster. This marked an era of what Lakoff calls, “unpreparedness”
which recently waned back into being a priority. Lakoff then explores the idea of “imaginative
enactment” which gave way for national security experts and public health officials to create
strategies to contain a catastrophic disease outbreak, despite not having statistical analysis.
Institutions that were focused in protecting public health in the United States using a method or
technique known as “crisis management” which mirrored the Cold War’s civil defense strategies
of stockpiling, improving systems and performing risk analysis where data was available.
Indonesia’s unwillingness to share avian flu H5N1 virus data on the grounds that the
World Health Organization was failing in its mission to bring fair and widespread access to
vaccines developed from the very sample Indonesia had sampled. This posed a crucial question,
“what protocol should be used to address global governance for health?” The result was a 2011,
Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework for the Sharing of Influenza Viruses and Access to
Vaccines and Other Benefits or PIP, which effectively worked with private industry to grant
wider access of developing countries to vaccines, in exchange for biological samples. Indonesia,
although an island, having an epidemic becomes dangerous as trade can be a vehicle for the
given disease to reach more population centers and thus creating a pandemic. Gostin then
explains how the PIP Framework, was never going to fully address the problem of inequality and
rather served as a direct solution to the incident with Indonesia.
The PIP Framework, however flawed, sparked the need for a protocol to address
collaboration and distributive justice. Finding the perfect framework, protocol or plan is all but
easy, but collaboration between states often proves as an effective method to develop such plans.
These plans need to take into consideration the need for resources in developing countries, and
the need for research data so crucial to the development of vaccines. Additionally, the World
Health Organization has to receive more power over member nations, since the organization
needs to act swiftly in coordinating, researching, and distributing when addressing disease
outbreaks.