In News
- Global Health Security Index 2021 was jointly released by non-profits Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
About Global Health Security Index 2021
- It is the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across 195 countries.
- The GHS Index aims to spur measurable changes in national health security and improve the international capability to address one of the world’s most omnipresent risks: infectious disease outbreaks that can lead to international epidemics and pandemics.
- It was first launched in October 2019.
- Revised framework: The findings of the GHS Index 2021 are based on a revised framework and updated data collection conducted between August 2020 and June 2021.
- It has assessed countries across six categories, 37 indicators and 171 questions, using instantly available information.
- Categories:
Image Courtesy:ghs index.org
Major Highlights
- Overall performance:
- The world’s overall performance on the GHS Index score slipped to 38.9 (out of 100) in 2021, from a score of 40.2 in the GHS Index, 2019.
- Countrywise:
- Some 101 high-middle– and low-income countries, including India, have slipped in performance since 2019.
- In South Asia, India, with a score of 42.8 (out of 100) too, has slipped by 0.8 points since 2019.
- But three neighbouring countries — Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives — have improved their score by 1-1.2 points.
- Issues
- All countries had insufficient health capacities. This left the world acutely vulnerable to future health emergencies.
- All countries remain dangerously unprepared for future epidemic and pandemic threats, including threats potentially more devastating than COVID-19.
- In 2021, no country scored in the top tier of rankings and no country scored above 75.9.
- 65 % of assessed countries had not published and implemented an overarching national public health emergency response plan for diseases with epidemic or pandemic potential.
- 73 % of countries did not have the ability to provide expedited approval for medical countermeasures, such as vaccines and antiviral drugs, during a public health emergency.
- Most countries, including high-income ones, have not made dedicated financial investments in strengthening epidemic or pandemic preparedness.
- All countries had insufficient health capacities. This left the world acutely vulnerable to future health emergencies.
- Recommendations
- Prioritize the building and maintaining of health security capacities in national budgets as they are important for responding to routine health threats and can provide important benefits to countries’ overall health and development.
- Conduct assessments, using findings from the 2021 GHS Index, to identify their risk factors and capacity gaps, and develop a plan to address them.
- Develop, cost, and make financial arrangements to support a National Action Plan for Health Security if they have completed Joint External Evaluations.
- Be more transparent with their capacities and risk factors.
- National decision-makers need readily available information about their country’s plans and other capacities, and increased transparency is essential for a global prevention, detection, and response to epidemics and pandemics.
- Conduct comprehensive after-action COVID-19 pandemic reports so that they can learn from this crisis and ensure that capacities developed during the pandemic are expanded and sustained for future public health emergencies.
- Support countries in addressing the urgent global need to strengthen health systems as part of countries’ public health capacity-building efforts.
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State of Healthcare in India
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Source: DTE
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