The International Health Regulations (2005) or ‘IHR (2005)’ are an international law which helps countries working together to save lives and livelihoods caused by the international spread of diseases and other health risks.
The IHR(2005) aim to prevent, protect against, control and respond to the international spread of disease while avoiding unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade. The IHR (2005) are also designed to reduce the risk of disease spread at international airports, ports and ground crossings.
Born of an extraordinary global consensus, the IHR (2005) strengthen the collective defences against the multiple and varied public health risks that today’s globalized world is facing and which have the potential to be rapidly spread through expanding travel and trade.
The IHR (2005) establish a new set of rules to support the existing global outbreak alert and response system and to require countries to improve international surveillance and reporting mechanisms for public health events and to strengthen their national surveillance and response capacities.
This makes the IHR (2005) a necessary and very timely new public health instrument, central to ensuring international public health security.
