Global Health Security Index: Advancing Collective Action and Accountability Amid Global Crisis

The 2021 Global Health Security (GHS) Index was published by the Centre for Health Security at John Hopkins University, Maryland, along with Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-profit organisation based in Washington, D.C. The Index assesses the ‘health security capacities’ of 195 countries that are party to the International Health Regulations, 2005 (IHR). This is the second GHS Index; the first was launched in the year 2019.The 2021 report aims to improve national and international health security to diminish the risk of "infectious disease outbreaks that can lead to international epidemics and pandemics.” It was written by Jessica A. Bell from the Nuclear Threat Initiative and Jennifer B. Nuzzo from the Centre for Health Security at John Hopkins University.The London-based policy research organisation Economist Impact was tasked with forming a multidimensional framework to assess countries for the GHS Index. The organisation examined publicly available data from each country – legal texts, government websites, government and private publications and more. The Index ranked the countries in six aspects – “prevention, detection and reporting, rapid response, health systems, compliance with international norms, and risk environment.”The GHS Index is based on three fundamental principles of rewarding transparency, recognising that several factors contribute to emergency preparedness, and expanding accountability and responsibility among countries, inter-governmental organisations, donors and the private sector. The report’s scoring system includes five tiers with groupings – in ascending order – of 0-20, 20.1-40, 40.1-60, 60.1-80, and 80.1-100...