New Rules for International Health Emergencies

The World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO, Geneva, Switzerland) has adopted new regulations to manage public health emergencies of international concern. The new rules will "prevent, protect against, and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease.”

Under the new regulations, countries have broader obligations to build national capacity for routine preventive measures and to detect and respond to public health emergencies of international concern. Such measures include public health actions at ports, airports, land borders, and for other means of transport used internationally.

The purpose of the new regulations is to ensure the maximum protection of people against the international spread of disease while minimizing interference with world travel and trade. The regulations include a list of diseases such as smallpox, polio, and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) whose occurrence must be notified to WHO. Consideration is made of whether an outbreak is serious, unusual, or unexpected, whether there is a significant risk of international spread, and whether there is a significant risk of international travel or trade restrictions.

The need for new rules and a more coordinated international response to the spread of disease was clearly shown during the outbreak of SARS in 2003. The original regulations agreed upon in 1969 were designed to help monitor and control only six serious infectious diseases: cholera, plague, yellow fever, smallpox, relapsing fever, and typhus.

"Today, travel and trade have expanded far beyond what was envisaged under the original regulations,” explained Dr. Guenael Rodier, WHO director of Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response. "The new rules respond to a globalized, 24-hour world in which a disease outbreak in one country can rapidly move around the world.”

Now that the regulations have been adopted by the World Health Assembly, countries will have to assess their capacities to identify and verify events, as well as to control them. The regulations identify specific capacity requirements that must be in place in each country within a fixed timeframe. The rules also provide a code of conduct for how to notify and respond to public health events of international concern.



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World Health Organization