Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Avian influenza continues threaten domestic poultry populations around the world. While the World Health Organization (WHO) and other international health institutions have not confirmed direct human to human transmission of this infectious disease, public health officials are increasingly concerned about the severity of this security threat. Since 2003, avian influenza has swept westward from South East Asia, through Central Asia and Eastern Europe, into parts of Africa, and most recently into Western Europe. Until recently, this disease posed minimal risk to the general human population; with only those in direct contact with foul at increased risk. However, the events in Indonesia, coupled with that fact that this strain of avian influenza shares similar characteristics with the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic which killed between 25 and 40 million people globally serve to highlight the threat to individuals and states alike. Further, the WHO recognizes that the emergence of human pandemic flu, most likely through a mutation of a form of avian influenza, is not a matter of, if, but when. Avian influenza, as well as other naturally occurring infectious diseases, is a security threat that must be incorporated into a state’s security framework. The securitization of this threat, though, does not mean a military solution. Rather, theoretical developments in the field of international relations now view non-military threats, like influenza as important as interstate conflict. Further, states do not tackle these types of threats individually. Rather, it is through international cooperation and engagement, a society, states react to security threats like infectious diseases.