Global Health Security Index reveals world unready for pandemic

MANILA, Philippines — A Global Health Security (GHS) Index mapped out by Filipino scientist Dr. Raul Destura has shown that 195 countries were unprepared for a pandemic.

The 2019 GHS Index, which looked into countries’ compliance and observance of provisions in the International Health Regulations (IHR) in 2005, found that the 195 States-Parties to the global health security instrument posted an average score of only 40.12 percent.

The GHS Index was presented by Destura last week at the National Research Council of the Philippines Annual Scientific Meeting and 87th General Membership Assembly held online.

The Index was supposed to have been presented last March 9, but the assembly was reset to July due to concerns of the then worsening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situation in the country and the rest of the world.

Science Secretary Fortunato dela Peña said that the GHS Index was a good barometer by which countries can assess their health security systems to be ready for future pandemics.

However, the low average of the 195 countries in the index was “disturbing,” he added.

“This is the first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capacities across 195 countries that make up the State-Parties to the International Health Regulations of 2005,” Dela Peña said.

“And the GHS Index – the 2019 GHS Index – showed a disturbing average because of their GHS score among all 195 countries that were assessed, and could have a possible score of 100 percent. This leads to the overall finding that national healthy security is fundamentally weak around the world,” he explained.

Dela Peña noted that the Philippines’ overall readiness rating stood at 47.6 percent, higher than the global average.

“And we ranked 53 out of the 195 countries. I did the computations myself, that’s top 27 percent,” he asserted.

“Notably, the Philippines scored 100 percent in data integration between human/animal/environmental health sectors, 91.2 percent in immunization, 83.3 percent in laboratory systems; 84.6 percent in communication infrastructure, and 87.5 percent for international commitments by country,” Dela Peña said.

“In terms of prevention, our average is 38.5 percent. Still higher than the global average which is 34.8 percent,” he continued. Rainier Allan Ronda