The Importance Of Global Health Security

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communities but it is important to note that treating global health issues as national security threats may disproportionately focus attention on countries or diseases which pose security threats to wealthy nations, rather than actually being the greatest threats to global health. Thus global health community should carefully examine and scrutinize areas where global health and national security interests overlap. (Aldis, 2008: 373-75) This has led to the birth of a new understanding amongst the administrators of the developing world. They believe that securitising a disease primarily means it has to have a global implication. There should be a clear distinction between individual security of a particular nation and global health security…show more content…
In 1992 Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his report- Agenda for Peace brought to the surface the changing nature of insecurity in the post-Cold War era. Later expanding agenda of the United Nations (UN) on human security concerns coupled with the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s commitment to human security activism resurfaced these questions of scholarly and policy research agenda in the late 1990s. (Williams 2008: 229). There are distinctively three concepts that shape the current debate on human security. The first is related to natural rights, the second is to humanitarian concerns and the third is essentially a much wider concept that clubs under human security those economic, environmental, social, and other threats to the overall livelihood and well-being of individuals. There is a strong social justice component imbued in the third conception of human security, as well as a wider consideration of threats (real and potential) to the survival and health of individuals(Williams 2008:229). The third view is also the most controversial of the three conceptions of human security because it encompasses the state of the global economy, the forces of globalization, and the health of the environment, including the world’s atmosphere and oceans, which are all legitimate subjects of concern in terms of how they affect the ‘security’ of the individual. (Williams 2008:230-31). This research paper will focus on the health dimension of human security that emerges from the third world view, specifically the Indian/West Bengal government’s efforts to ensure health security of its citizens against the infectious disease -Tuberculosis

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