Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
1
The concern for reducing threats from international epidemics - from
this follows a need for a political strategy on how to counter this kind of
threat.
2
The concern for developing and managing a healthcare system of high
quality - from this follows a need for political strategies that aim to
attain a healthcare service of good quality that is accessible for patients
and cost effective.
3
The concern for developing and maintaining an educational standard for
staff - from this follows a need for strategies that will educate enough
personnel for the service, leading to self-sufficiency.
What are the possible threats in health security?
1 Epidemics;
2
Denial of access to healthcare services;
3
Insufficient access to healthcare personnel.
While there may be other threats, I focus on these three, because they are
likely to be among the most important, as acknowledged by the World
Health Organization (WHO). Telemedicine is an obvious tool for use in both
preventing the spread of epidemics and increasing access to healthcare. There
are two main parts to telemedicine. The first focuses on the use of technology
to diagnose and treat patients at a distance, and the second focuses on technol-
ogy that may be used as a tool for educating staff and patients. This second
part will be addressed in my discussion of threats arising from denial of access
to healthcare services.
The threat of epidemics
The 2003 CHS report states that the awareness of:
global interdependencies in health is growing among the public and
political leaders. Public financing for global health has begun to increase
… Non governmental organizations are proliferating, and media cov-
erage of health and security has increased markedly. New institutional
arrangements are being established, such as the Global Fund to Fight
AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.
(CHS 2003:102)
In order to counter these epidemic-based threats to human security, inter-
national cooperation is essential. When states are aware that an epidemic is
moving rapidly, they are probably more willing to cooperate in order to increase
health security. The CHS report (2003:102) points out that 'Reducing health
 
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