Health and disease

Abstract

More often viewed as a developmental or a humanitarian challenge rather than a security challenge, addressing the vast array of African public health problems has increasingly come to be seen as a critical human security priority. While many have criticized the securitization of health issues, the cross-cutting linkages to other political, social, and economic issues are real and so too are their implications for security. In addition, most health challenges in Africa were previously seen as localized problems threatening only the well-being of specific populations, but in today’s globalized world they can have profound negative implications far beyond the original source of the problem. While some international public health threats, such as disease pandemics, are nothing new the ability of new disease epidemics to transcend international borders and continents at a speed and breadth is heretofore unknown in human history.