Viral Sovereignty and Technology Transfer

Viral Sovereignty and Technology Transfer
Author: Sam F. Halabi
Publisher:
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2020-06-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108666175

Sharing biological resources-critical for new medicines and vaccines-has declined as countries and scientists dispute rights over research.

Viral Sovereignty and Technology Transfer

Viral Sovereignty and Technology Transfer
Author: Sam F. Halabi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2020-06-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1108484727

Sharing biological resources-critical for new medicines and vaccines-has declined as countries and scientists dispute rights over research.

Viral Sovereignty and the Political Economy of Pandemics

Viral Sovereignty and the Political Economy of Pandemics
Author: Sophal Ear
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 172
Release: 2021-11-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000487210

Over the past few decades a number of emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) have disrupted societies throughout the world, including HIV, Ebola, H5N1 (or ‘‘avian flu’’) and SARS, and of course the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) which spread worldwide to become a global pandemic. As well as EIDs, countries and regions also contend with endemic diseases, such as malaria. There are many factors that have contributed to the rise in, and spread of, EIDs and other diseases, including overpopulation, rapid urbanization, environmental degradation, and antibiotic resistance. Political and cultural responses to disease can greatly affect their spread. The global community needs to defend itself against disease threats: one weak link is enough to start a chain reaction that results in a global pandemic such as COVID-19. Some states take a nationalistic approach towards combating disease; however, international cooperation and meaningful ‘‘viral sovereignty’’—empowering countries to create effective health institutions and surveillance systems in order to contain disease—must be considered. This volume, with a focus on Southeast Asia, Africa and North America, considers the intersection between disease, politics, science, and culture in the global battle against pandemics, making use of case studies and interviews to examine the ways in which governments and regions handle outbreaks and pandemics.

The Domestic and International Impacts of the 2009-H1N1 Influenza A Pandemic

The Domestic and International Impacts of the 2009-H1N1 Influenza A Pandemic
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 440
Release: 2010-07-04
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0309146771

In March and early April 2009, a new, swine-origin 2009-H1N1 influenza A virus emerged in Mexico and the United States. During the first few weeks of surveillance, the virus spread by human-to-human transmission worldwide to over 30 countries. On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the worldwide pandemic alert level to Phase 6 in response to the ongoing global spread of the novel influenza A (H1N1) virus. By October 30, 2009, the H1N1 influenza A had spread to 191 countries and resulted in 5,700 fatalities. A national emergency was declared in the United States and the swine flu joined SARS and the avian flu as pandemics of the 21st century. Vaccination is currently available, but in limited supply, and with a 60 percent effectiveness rate against the virus. The story of how this new influenza virus spread out of Mexico to other parts of North America and then on to Europe, the Far East, and now Australia and the Pacific Rim countries has its origins in the global interconnectedness of travel, trade, and tourism. Given the rapid spread of the virus, the international scientific, public health, security, and policy communities had to mobilize quickly to characterize this unique virus and address its potential effects. The World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control have played critical roles in the surveillance, detection and responses to the H1N1 virus. The Domestic and International Impacts of the 2009-H1N1 Influenza A Pandemic: Global Challenges, Global Solutions aimed to examine the evolutionary origins of the H1N1 virus and evaluate its potential public health and socioeconomic consequences, while monitoring and mitigating the impact of a fast-moving pandemic. The rapporteurs for this workshop reported on the need for increased and geographically robust global influenza vaccine production capacities; enhanced and sustained interpandemic demand for seasonal influenza vaccines; clear "triggers" for pandemic alert levels; and accelerated research collaboration on new vaccine manufacturing techniques. This book will be an essential guide for healthcare professionals, policymakers, drug manufacturers and investigators.

Access and Benefit Sharing of Genetic Resources, Information and Traditional Knowledge

Access and Benefit Sharing of Genetic Resources, Information and Traditional Knowledge
Author: Charles Lawson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2022-10-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000730077

Addressing the management of genetic resources, this book offers a new assessment of the contemporary Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) regime. Debates about ABS have moved on. The initial focus on the legal obligations established by international agreements like the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and the form of obligations for collecting physical biological materials have now shifted into a far more complex series of disputes and challenges about the ways ABS should be implemented and enforced. These now cover a wide range of issues, including: digital sequence information, the repatriation of resources, technology transfer, traditional knowledge and cultural expressions, open access to information and knowledge, naming conventions, farmers’ rights, new schemes for accessing pandemic viruses sharing DNA sequences, and so on. Drawing together perspectives from an interdisciplinary range of leading and emerging international scholars, this book offers a new approach to the ABS landscape; as it breaks from the standard regulatory analyses in order to explore alternative solutions to the intractable issues for the Access and Benefit Sharing of genetic resources. Addressing these modern legal debates from a perspective that will appeal to both ABS scholars and those with broader legal concerns in the areas of intellectual property, food, governance, Indigenous issues, and so on, this book will be a useful resource for scholars and students as well as those in government and in international institutions working in relevant areas.

Law, Regulation and Governance in the Information Society

Law, Regulation and Governance in the Information Society
Author: Maurizio Borghi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2022-12-30
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000830357

This edited collection seeks to map the landscape of contemporary informational interests, to evaluate a range of recognised and putative rights and wrongs associated with modern information societies, and to consider how law, regulation, and governance should be deployed in response. New technologies and new applications constantly disrupt our values, our framing of our world, and our sense of where we are and who we are. In our ‘information societies’, we entertain mixed hopes and expectations, as well as significant fears and concerns. At the root of these, there are a number of informational interests, on the basis of which certain rights are claimed and particular wrongs denounced. This book addresses these interests, considering them as relating primarily to the integrity of the informational ecosystem, to the accessibility, accuracy, and authenticity of public information, and to our individual ability to control the outward and inward flows of information that relates directly to ourselves. Covering a wide range of subjects, the book’s interrogation of our contemporary information society is oriented around two questions: first, whether the information society in which we live is the kind of society that we think it should be and, second, if not, what we can reasonably expect law, regulation, and governance to do in providing the basis for improving it. This book will be of considerable interest to those working at the intersection of law and technology, as well as others concerned with the legal, political, and social aspects of our information society.

Infectious Disease Movement in a Borderless World

Infectious Disease Movement in a Borderless World
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2010-03-10
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 030915197X

Modern transportation allows people, animals, and plants-and the pathogens they carry-to travel more easily than ever before. The ease and speed of travel, tourism, and international trade connect once-remote areas with one another, eliminating many of the geographic and cultural barriers that once limited the spread of disease. Because of our global interconnectedness through transportation, tourism and trade, infectious diseases emerge more frequently; spread greater distances; pass more easily between humans and animals; and evolve into new and more virulent strains. The IOM's Forum on Microbial Threats hosted the workshop "Globalization, Movement of Pathogens (and Their Hosts) and the Revised International Health Regulations" December 16-17, 2008 in order to explore issues related to infectious disease spread in a "borderless" world. Participants discussed the global emergence, establishment, and surveillance of infectious diseases; the complex relationship between travel, trade, tourism, and the spread of infectious diseases; national and international policies for mitigating disease movement locally and globally; and obstacles and opportunities for detecting and containing these potentially wide-reaching and devastating diseases. This document summarizes the workshop.

Resilient Life

Resilient Life
Author: Brad Evans
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2014-04-10
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0745682839

What does it mean to live dangerously? This is not just a philosophical question or an ethical call to reflect upon our own individual recklessness. It is a deeply political issue, fundamental to the new doctrine of ‘resilience’ that is becoming a key term of art for governing planetary life in the 21st Century. No longer should we think in terms of evading the possibility of traumatic experiences. Catastrophic events, we are told, are not just inevitable but learning experiences from which we have to grow and prosper, collectively and individually. Vulnerability to threat, injury and loss has to be accepted as a reality of human existence. In this original and compelling text, Brad Evans and Julian Reid explore the political and philosophical stakes of the resilience turn in security and governmental thinking. Resilience, they argue, is a neo-liberal deceit that works by disempowering endangered populations of autonomous agency. Its consequences represent a profound assault on the human subject whose meaning and sole purpose is reduced to survivability. Not only does this reveal the nihilistic qualities of a liberal project that is coming to terms with its political demise. All life now enters into lasting crises that are catastrophic unto the end.

Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation - Intersections between Public Health, Intellectual Property and Trade

Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation - Intersections between Public Health, Intellectual Property and Trade
Author: World Intellectual Property Organization
Publisher: WIPO
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2013
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9280523082

This study has emerged from an ongoing program of trilateral cooperation between WHO, WTO and WIPO. It responds to an increasing demand, particularly in developing countries, for strengthened capacity for informed policy-making in areas of intersection between health, trade and IP, focusing on access to and innovation of medicines and other medical technologies.