Global Health Institute

By Zachary Fritz

On Tuesday, January 29, 2020, Georgetown’s Conversations in Global Health class hosted Dr. Rebecca Katz, Georgetown Professor and the Director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security, to reflect upon her professional journey in global health and discuss one of the most pressing issues in global health security: the novel coronavirus in China. In addition to sharing her vast experience as a global health security consultant to the U.S. State Department and a leading figure in academia, Dr. Katz provided a unique yet measured perspective regarding the potential implications of declaring a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), the importance of the International Health Regulations (IHR), and the main difficulties of global health diplomacy.

Much of the discussion with Dr. Katz centered around global health preparedness and the proper implementation of the IHRs to the coronavirus outbreak. When asked about the current state of global preparedness, I found Dr. Katz’s emphasis on political willingness and communication to be insightful into her beliefs regarding the areas for potential improvement in coordinating global health security. Furthermore, her comments seemed to indicate the importance of capturing the fluctuating interest of policymakers in creating global health policies. This attention on politics is particularly important to the coronavirus outbreak given China’s negative global health reputation from the SARS outbreak. One of the most salient points of controversy is whether or not to declare the novel coronavirus outbreak a PHEIC. Katz compared the present situation in China with the hesitancy to declare a PHEIC in the Ebola epidemic in western Africa, explaining that the IHR defines it as an outbreak that has the potential to cross international borders. While issuing it earlier has immense benefits for the affected population if the outbreak expands, a pre-mature declaration has significant consequences as affected nations’ industrial supply chains are disrupted by travel and trade restrictions and other nations enact restrictive and stigmatizing immigration policies. In my opinion, the tentativeness indicates that global health emergencies are evaluated primarily through a political lens, as the signal matters as much as the treatment of the epidemic. The decision has significant implications on the political weight of the IHR and what exactly should constitute a PHEIC (e.g. regional versus global terminology).

Dr. Katz expressed her expectation that PHEIC for coronavirus will likely be declared in the next week since it has fulfilled the legal definition of crossing international borders. While I understand that such a decision would be validated according to a strict IHR interpretation, I believe that the declaration should not be issued until either the fatality rate spikes significantly or there is person-to-person transmission outside the country of origin to limit the negative political consequences until absolutely necessary. Furthermore, I think it would also be useful to distinguish between regional international threats and global international threats in future IHR reviews. 

Dr. Katz measured analysis and careful diction toward complex global health issues, such as the novel coronavirus, demonstrate the importance of proper communication and language skills toward her success in global health security. From our discussion with Dr. Katz and along with “Defining Health Diplomacy (Links to an external site.)," I was reminded of the necessity of taking a coordinated and international approach to combat global health crises through employing a variety of global health experts from foreign service agents to academics, such as Dr. Katz, in an era of globalization with increased probabilities of epidemics and pandemics. 

Zachary Fritz (C‘21) is a third-year undergraduate at Georgetown University studying Biology of Global Health and Science, Technology, and International Affairs with a concentration in Global Health.