Salud pública global: un desafío a los límites de la salud internacional a propósito de la epidemia de influenza humana A Global public health: international health is tested to its limits by the human influenza A epidemic

• Main Authors: Álvaro Franco-Giraldo, Carlos Álvarez-Dardet
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English; Spanish; Portuguese
• Published: Pan American Health Organization 2009
• Subjects: public health; world health; health policy; principle-based ethics; Medicine; R; Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine; RC955-962; Public aspects of medicine; RA1-1270; Arctic
• Online Access: https://doaj.org/article/ce15979c9dad46f3b864fe08da4f75f0

This article comes from the intense international pressure that follows a near-catastrophy, such as the human influenza A H1N1 epidemic, and the limited resources for confronting such events. The analysis covers prevailing 20th century trends in the international public health arena and the change-induced challenges brought on by globalization, the transition set in motion by what has been deemed the "new" international public health and an ever-increasing focus on global health, in the context of an international scenario of shifting risks and opportunities and a growing number of multinational players. Global public health is defined as a public right, based on a new appreciation of the public, a new paradigm centered on human rights, and altruistic philosophy, politics, and ethics that undergird the changes in international public health on at least three fronts: redefining its theoretical foundation, improving world health, and renewing the international public health system, all of which is the byproduct of a new form of governance. A new world health system, directed by new global public institutions, would aim to make public health a global public right and face a variety of staggering challenges, such as working on public policy management on a global scale, renewing and democratizing the current global governing structure, and conquering the limits and weaknesses witnessed by international health.