{"id":104134,"date":"2026-05-19T13:03:47","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T07:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=104134"},"modified":"2026-05-20T14:16:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T08:46:30","slug":"public-health-emergency-of-international-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/public-health-emergency-of-international-concern\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Public Health Emergency of International Concern Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The World Health Organization (WHO) recently declared the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Uganda a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Public Health Emergency of International Concern<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is an <\/span><b>emergency declaration<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> formally announced by the <\/span><b>World Health Organization (WHO)<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in response to a <\/span><b>crisis of international proportions<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that can <\/span><b>affect people\u2019s health.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is the <\/span><b>WHO\u2019s highest level of global health alert.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Such a declaration may require <\/span><b>immediate action at a global level against the international spread <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of disease.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A PHEIC is<\/span><b> subject to the International Health Regulations (IHR),<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which require those states involved to promptly respond to the crisis at hand.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PHEICs are <\/span><b>decided upon by a governing body <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">of international experts<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">known as the <\/span><b>IHR Emergency Committee,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> a group formed in the aftermath of the 2002\u20132004 SARS outbreak.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The declaration is <\/span><b>reviewed on a tri-monthly basis <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and renewed as needed.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">However,<\/span><b> certain disease <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">outbreaks can be <\/span><b>declared a PHEIC without the approval of the IHR.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alongside infectious disease, a <\/span><b>PHEIC can also be declared<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in response to outbreaks of <\/span><b>public health hazards<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as<\/span><b> chemical agents or radioactive materials.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Key Facts about International Health Regulations\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The IHR was <\/span><b>adopted by the Health Assembly (decision-making body of WHO) in 1969<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in an effort to <\/span><b>prevent the spread of disease across national borders.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Following the chaotic global outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that lasted between 2002 and 2004, revisions were made to the IHR to account for such global emergencies.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A<\/span><b> new IHR<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> was adopted at the <\/span><b>58th World Health Assembly in May 2005.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The IHR 2005 was an <\/span><b>international agreement among 196 countries <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">committed to upholding global health security.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>WHO <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">was deemed the <\/span><b>coordinating body<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of this agreement. <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><strong>:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/news.un.org\/en\/story\/2026\/05\/1167531\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>UN<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Public Health Emergency of International Concern is an emergency declaration formally announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) in response to a crisis of international proportions that can affect people\u2019s health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":104113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,7614,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-104134","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-public-health-emergency-of-international-concern","10":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","11":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104134"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104134\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104147,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104134\/revisions\/104147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}