On June 1, in the nail-biting final hours of the annual World Health Assembly meeting in Geneva, states agreed to a robust package of amendments to the World Health Organization’s 2005 International Health Regulations.
For more than a century, nations have sought to develop international rules to face communicable disease threats while protecting national interests. Building on that history, the regulations are the world’s only existing international legal agreement focused exclusively on preventing and addressing infectious disease outbreaks across borders.
The last time the regulations saw a major overhaul, the international community had narrowly emerged from the grips of the 2003 SARS outbreak. Old rules had nothing on new germs. Realizing their shared vulnerability to new diseases, countries mobilized to give the regulations a facelift.
