The Global Health Security Index is not predictive of coronavirus pandemic responses among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries

Abbey, Enoch J.; Khalifa, Banda A. A.; Oduwole, Modupe O.; Ayeh, Samuel K.; Nudotor, Richard; Salia, Emmanuella L.; Lasisi, Oluwatobi; Bennett, Seth; Yusuf, Hasiya; Agwu, Allison L.; Karakousis, Petros C.

doi:10.1101/2020.07.21.20159061

Cited by 21 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…In retrospect, these assessments suffer discrepancies which suggest that other factors come into play, such as the effect of exceptional leadership in times of crises. Therefore, frequent re‐evaluation of the GHS Index should be considered [10].…”

Section: Preparedness and Initial Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

COVID‐19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: Two years of the pandemic

et al. 2022

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Worldwide, nations have struggled during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic. However, Latin America and the Caribbean faced an unmatched catastrophic toll. As of March 2022, the region has reported approximately 15% of cases and 28% of deaths worldwide. Considering the relatively late arrival of SARS‐CoV‐2, several factors in the region were determinants of the humanitarian crisis that ensued. Pandemic unpreparedness, fragile healthcare systems, forthright inequalities, and poor governmental support facilitated the spread of the virus throughout the region. Moreover, reliance on repurposed and ineffective drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin—to treat or prevent COVID‐19—was publicised through misinformation and created a false sense of security and poor adherence to social distancing measures. While there were hopes that herd immunity could be achieved after the region's disastrous first peak, the emergence of the Gamma, Lambda, and Mu variants made this unattainable. This review explores how Latin America and the Caribbean fared during the first 2 years of the pandemic, and how, despite all the challenges, the region became a global leader in COVID‐19 vaccination, with 63% of its population fully vaccinated.

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Section: Preparedness and Initial Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

COVID‐19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: Two years of the pandemic

et al. 2022

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“…By March 2020, when our WHO announced that COVID-19 had gone pandemic, it was evident that our societies were no more immune to coronisation than China. The USA and the UK, who ranked ourselves most highly in pandemic preparedness, were among the worst—at least, initially—infected (Abbey et al 2020). This, however, did not stop our political leaders demanding we remain vigilant in case of viral re-invasion from ‘… the least protected countries with the most underdeveloped health systems ’ (Sherwood 2020).…”

Section: The(ir) Vaccine Era (2020–present): Germs Of Our New Post/mo...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Wars and sweets: microbes, medicines and other moderns in and beyond the(ir) antibiotic era

Hutchison

2022

Med Humanities

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Once upon a time, many of us moderns dreamt that our future was bright, squeaky clean, germ-free. Now, we increasingly fear that bacterial resistance movements and hordes of viruses are cancelling our medicated performances, and threatening life as many of us have come to know it. In order for our modern antibiotic theatre of war to go on, we pray for salvation through our intensive surveillance of microbes, crusades for more rational antibiotic wars, increased recruitment of resistance fighters and development of antibiotic armaments through greater investment in our medical-industrial-war complex. But not all of us are in favour of the promise of perpetual antimicrobial wars, no matter how careful or rational their proponents aspire to be. An increasing vocal and diverse opposition has amassed in academic journals, newspapers and other fields of practice denouncing medicalisation and pharamceuticalisation of our daily lives, as well as our modern medicine as overly militaristic. In this paper, rather than simply rehearsing many of these well-made and meaning debates to convert you to yet another cause, I enrol them in redescriptions of our modern medical performances in the hope of awakening you from your aseptic dream. What follows is my invitation for you to re-enact our mythic antibiotic era in all its martial g(l)ory. I promise that it will bring you no physically harm, yet I can't promise it will leave your beliefs unscathed, as you follow its playful redescription of how our objective scientific descriptions, clinical prescriptions, economic strategies, political mandates and military orders, not to mention our warspeak, have always been deeply entangled with triumphs and devastations of The(ir) Great anti-Microbial Wars (aka our antibiotic era).

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“…Indeed, these outcomes contradicted the high rankings of both countries in the GHSI discussed above (Boyd et al, 2020). As a result, the latter was criticised as an only partially effective guide to state preparedness and capacity (Abbey et al, 2020). Ironically perhaps, Global South states who had benefitted from technical and financial support and constraint under US-funded global health initiatives often had more success in containing the virus and limiting deaths from it (Nuzzo et al, 2020).…”

Section: Conclusion and A Codamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…States' efforts to meet the latter set of obligations are monitored by a Joint External Evaluation, superintended by the WHO, which offers technical advice (Boyd et al, 2020). Pandemic preparedness is also the subject of the Global Health Security Index (GHSI) prepared by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Economist Intelligence Unit (Abbey et al, 2020). This ranks states according to combined evaluation of their capacity inter alia for prevention, detection and rapid response, as well as health-system robustness and commitment to international disease-control norms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indicators, security and sovereignty during COVID-19 in the Global South

Harrington

2021

International Journal of Law in Context

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The spread of COVID-19 has seen a contest over health governance and sovereignty in Global South states, with a focus on two radically distinct modes: (1) indicators and metrics and (2) securitisation. Indicators have been a vehicle for the government of states through the external imposition and internal self-application of standards and benchmarks. Securitisation refers to the calling-into-being of emergencies in the face of existential threats to the nation. This paper contextualises both historically with reference to the trajectory of Global South states in the decades after decolonisation, which saw the rise and decline of Third-World solidarity and its replacement by neoliberalism and global governance mechanisms in health, as in other sectors. The interaction between these modes and their relative prominence during COVID-19 is studied through a brief case-study of developments in Kenya during the early months of the pandemic. The paper closes with suggestions for further research and a reflection on parallel trends within Global North states.

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The Global Health Security Index is not predictive of coronavirus pandemic responses among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries

Cited by 21 publications

References 6 publications

COVID‐19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: Two years of the pandemic

COVID‐19 in Latin America and the Caribbean: Two years of the pandemic

Wars and sweets: microbes, medicines and other moderns in and beyond the(ir) antibiotic era

Indicators, security and sovereignty during COVID-19 in the Global South

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