Health issues as security issues

Abstract

In recent years, the concept of health security has acquired an international dimension. Global health issues incurred as a result of modern conflict, globalization, increased mobility of people, climate change, bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases pose threats not only to national, but to global security, as well. The potential dangers of epidemics, particularly pandemics, are considered to be threats to national security and as such they have found their place in the national documents and strategies of national security. After the UN Security Council passed the first ever resolution on a health issue in 2000 - Resolution 1308, which recognized the potential of an epidemic to pose a risk to stability and security and declared 'peaceful war against AIDS' - as well as after a SARS outbreak in 2003, a H1N1 pandemic in 2009 and an Ebola outbreak in 2014, which the UN Security Council Resolution 2177 marked as a 'threat to international peace and security', more attention has been given to the concept of global health security. In this paper, we will discuss why health issues are considered to be security issues, and present how health security has been treated in the national security strategies of individual countries, but also in global health security initiatives.

Keywords

• health security
• global health security
• global health diplomacy
• emerging infectious diseases
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