Abstract
By 15 June 2012, States Parties to the International Health Regulations (2005), or IHR (2005), were required to have established the core capacities required to implement Annex 1 of IHR (2005). The Pacific is home to 10 million people spread over 21 Pacific island countries and territories. Seven of those have populations of less than 25000 people; 14 of the 21 Pacific island countries and territories are States Parties to the IHR (2005). The World Health Organization Division of the South Pacific embarked on an initiative to support Pacific Island States Parties meet their 15 June 2012 IHR obligations. We adapted the 2012 IHR Monitoring Questionnaire (IHRMQ) to assist Pacific island countries and territories determine if they had met the capacities required to implement Annex 1 of the IHR (2005). If a Pacific island country or territory determined that it had not yet met the requirements, it could use the assessment outcome to develop a plan to address identified gaps. Direct support was provided to 19 of 21 (91%) Pacific island countries and territories including 13 of 14 (93%) States Parties. Twelve of 14 (86%) fulfilled their requirements by 15 June 2012; those that had not yet met the requirements requested extensions and submitted plans describing how the IHR core capacities would be met. Adapting the 2012 IHRMQ for this purpose provided an efficient tool for assessing national capacity to implement Annex 1 of IHR (2005) and provided clear indication of what capacities required strengthening.
Highlights
On 15 June 2012, five years after the International Health Regulations (2005), or IHR (2005), entered into force, the States Parties to IHR (2005)[1] were required to have in place the core public health capacities required to implement Annex 1 of the IHR (2005), and, if it was found that the capacities needed were not yet in place, to request a two-year extension to allow more time to meet the requirements.[2]
This paper describes how the World Health Organization (WHO) Division of the South Pacific used the 2012 IHR Monitoring Questionnaire (IHRMQ) to produce a tailored tool with which Pacific island countries and territories could determine fulfilment of their capacity to implement Annex 1 of IHR (2005) to meet their 15 June 2012 obligations
For most Pacific island www.wpro.who.int/wpsar countries and territories the catchment populations are too small to supply the necessary number of samples to warrant the investment in national confirmatory testing capacity, and it is necessary to rely on the Pacific Public Health Surveillance Network (PPHSN)-coordinated laboratory network to facilitate overseas testing
Summary
In the last two decades, WHO, SPC and the Pacific island countries and territories have worked closely to establish and sustain PPHSN (a voluntary network of Pacific island countries and territories’ public health authorities, WHO, SPC and other regional public health entities) and Pacific-wide networks and services that provide important capacity support such as early warning for outbreaks,[7,8] laboratory testing or outbreak response. Through the support of PPHSN, many of IHR (2005) core capacities are available to Pacific island countries and territories, some of which could never be achieved by smaller individual Pacific island countries and territories. For most Pacific island www.wpro.who.int/wpsar countries and territories the catchment populations are too small to supply the necessary number of samples to warrant the investment in national confirmatory testing capacity, and it is necessary to rely on the PPHSN-coordinated laboratory network to facilitate overseas testing. Pacific island countries and territories expressed their desire for future IHR (and other) assessment tools to be shorter and simpler, noting that they would be better received, more useful to individual nations and more likely to be completed in time. To lessen the resource drain on already over-burdened ministries
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