AUSTRALIA–INDONESIA JOINT SYMPOSIUM IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Jakarta, 13-17 September 2006
The international response to disease outbreaks: from global to regional responsibilities
Professor John Mackenzie, Professor of Tropical Infectious Diseases, Australian Biosecurity CRC, Curtin University of Technology, Perth
Outbreaks of new or emerging infectious diseases may pose a threat to the international community, whether as naturally occurring diseases, laboratory accidents, or as a deliberate release, and there needs to be both an international surveillance programme to detect disease outbreaks of possible concern and an ability to mount a global response to verify and control such outbreaks. There is an expectation that the World Health Organization (WHO) should be the lead agency in both surveillance and response to disease outbreaks. However no single institution or country has all of the capacities to respond to international public health emergencies. To ensure that countries can access technical experts and capacity for the detection, identification and response to epidemics and emerging disease threats, WHO initiated a technical collaboration with a number of existing institutions and networks to provide an international rapid response partnership, the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN). Currently the network is a technical partnership of more than 140 organisations of varying size. Since its inception in 2000, GOARN has provided support to more than 30 countries to contain nearly 50 outbreaks of international importance. Although most of the early responses were to single country outbreaks, the emergency of SARS, and more recently, highly pathogenic avian influenza, have meant an increased role for GOARN in these multi-country events. WHO also mobilised GOARN in response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami.
In the future, it is expected that the concept of GOARN will address regional needs – especially strengthening regional laboratory networks to underpin the field operations, and to support capacity building to address the legal expectations of the new International Health Regulations. These will be described and the mechanisms and problems outlined.
John Mackenzie is Professor of Tropical Infectious Diseases and inaugural holder of the Premier's Fellowship at Curtin University of Technology. He had been Professor of Microbiology and Professor of Tropical Infectious Diseases in the University of Queensland, 1995–2004, and Interim CEO of the Australian Biosecurity CRC (2003). He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, and was Past President of the Australian Society for Microbiology, Past President of the Asian-Pacific Society for Medical Virology, and Secretary-General of the International Union of Microbiological Societies. He is a member of many international committees and a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Committee of WHO.
