Areas of Investment
USAID's Global Health Security Program Priorities
USAID's Global Health Security Program works with partner countries - as well as global, regional, and local ,public and private sector organizations - to help strengthen systems needed to prevent and mitigate the increasing occurrence and severity of emerging infectious disease threats. These partnerships build and strengthen measurable, sustainable capacity while help helping to develop and adopt evidence-based and innovative solutions to prevent, rapidly detect, effectively respond to, and ultimately recover from emerging infectious disease threats - whether naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate. Recognizing the connection between the health of the environment, animals and people, we implement the One Health approach. Our GHS program uses an integrated approach that is inclusive of four main efforts:
1. Strengthening Global Health Security Capacities in Partner Countries
USAID’s GHS Program provides support for countries and regions to more effectively prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics. Beginning in 2022, USAID expanded its GHS efforts into 50 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Eurasia. This effort is key to the United States National Biodefense Strategy commitment to assist at least 50 countries to achieve “demonstrated capacities” in five GHS technical areas by 2025. Investment areas include disease surveillance, national laboratory systems, human resources, antimicrobial resistance, zoonotic disease, biosafety and biosecurity, infection prevention and control, and risk communication and community engagement. USAID’s vision is for every country to be capable of addressing health security gaps and responding to major outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics.
2. Infectious Disease Outbreak Response
USAID’s Outbreak Response Team (ORT) – a core component of the GHS Program – improves outbreak response by supporting countries through effective coordination (with USAID Missions and Bureaus, in-country partners, multilateral partners, and U.S. departments and agencies), consistent messaging, informed decision making, and strategic alignment of USAID’s priorities. Since the beginning of 2022, the ORT has been activated for multiple U.S. responses, including the global mpox outbreak; Ebola outbreaks in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Marburg outbreaks in Equatorial Guinea, Ghana and Tanzania; and a cholera outbreak in Malawi. USAID’s ORT works closely on international outbreak response efforts with other U.S. Departments and Agencies, including the Department of State and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
3. Multilateral Partnerships
USAID works with multilateral partners to catalyze assistance and strengthen global health security capacities in additional countries, contributing the the National Biodefense Strategy commitment to assist an additional 50 countries to achieve demonstrated capacity in five GHS technical areas. This includes investments in the Pandemic Fund, which finances critical investments to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response capacities at national, regional, and global levels, with a focus on low- and middle-income countries. It also includes investments in the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), which accelerates the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enables access to these vaccines during outbreaks.
4. Interconnected U.S. Global Health Programs
The COVID-19 pandemic caused major setbacks in national health and development gains, and it is critical for USAID’s broader global health programs to be inextricably linked with GHS investments. USAID leverages its GHS Program to reduce epidemic and pandemic shocks on country health systems and to link national and regional initiatives that build horizontal, non-disease specific capacity – such as safe and secure laboratory and disease surveillance systems, public and animal health workforce, and platforms for procuring, deploying, and managing countermeasures and personnel in response to health emergencies. All of USAID’s global health programs provide a baseline of support for countries that is essential for them to achieve outbreak preparedness and response objectives, including health systems resilience; primary health care; maternal and child health and nutrition; the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR); the President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI); COVID-19 preparedness and response; and food security.