Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 51, no. 1, February–March 2009, pp. 191–214
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Most infectious diseases do not attract heightened political attention because their effects are mild, they are familiar to physicians, or their geographic occurrence is limited. A particular disease might be deemed a security issue, however, when its effects impose or threaten to impose an intolerable burden on society. That burden can be measured in terms of morbidity and mortality, but also in terms of the way in which a disease is perceived by those who fear infection. The disease described by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as ‘the most feared security threat’ today is pandemic influenza.The next pandemic could cause illness and death on a large scale, over a wide area, in a short space of time. Such a prospect arguably sets this disease apart from the many others that may be regarded simply as health issues, and some Western governments have started to frame pandemic influenza as a threat to national security. According to the US pandemic plan, a ‘necessary enabler of pandemic preparedness’ is that this be viewed ‘as a national security issue’. The ‘National Security Strategy of the United Kingdom’ assesses an influenza pandemic as the ‘highest risk’ civil emergency. And under the Australian pandemic plan, which emphasises ‘maintenance of social functioning’, Australians are to receive the best possible health care ‘commensurate with the maintenance of a safe and secure society’.
Historical experience indicates that the world is overdue for an influenza pandemic, and a virus with pandemic potential – H5N1 avian influenza, which emerged in late 2003 – is still out of control. Past pandemics were all the more damaging because they took the world by surprise; however, the stakes are still high in the twenty-first century because increased human interconnectedness facilitates the global spread of disease. In the first identifiable pre-pandemic phase of human history, it makes sense to be thinking seriously about how best to prepare and respond. Yet as some governments move to prioritise this health issue by framing it in security terms, two risks emerge: firstly, that emergency responses implemented at the domestic level might do more harm than good; and secondly, that placing too great an emphasis on the health and security interests of individual states might detract from the need for long-term international cooperation on resisting pandemic influenza.
A pandemic in waiting?
The avian influenza virus known as H5N1 first appeared in Hong Kong chicken farms in 1997 and killed six out of 18 people infected when the virus jumped species. Although the properties of the virus were not well known at the time, the killing of all poultry in Hong Kong’s markets and farms was a precaution that may well have averted a larger human outbreak of the disease. Thereafter, H5N1 was largely forgotten, but did not disappear. On 12 December 2003 South Korea’s chief veterinary officer advised the World Organisation for Animal Health that a large number of chickens on a farm near Seoul had suddenly died of avian influenza. By early January 2004, reports were emerging of a ‘mysterious disease’...
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Christian Enemark is Lecturer at the Centre for International Security Studies, University of Sydney, and a Visiting Fellow at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University.
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