Republic of Korea to Host 2022 Global Health Security Agenda Ministerial Meeting in Seoul

The Meeting brings together participants from around 70 countries and major health-related international organizations in Seoul, and calls for action for preparedness for and response to global health security threats, such as infectious diseases.

Osong, 17^th November 2022 – The Government of the Republic of Korea will host the 2022 Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) Ministerial Meeting in Grand Hyatt Seoul in South Korea from 28^th to 30^th November 2022. The participants will include health Ministers from around 70 countries as well as international organizations.

< An Overview of the 7^th GHSA Ministerial Meeting >

The Global Health Security Agenda was launched in 2014 as a global consultative group joined by governments from around the world and international organizations to help build a world safer and securer from global health threats, as global health security threats were increasingly posed by emerging infectious diseases (e.g. SARS, MERS, COVID-19, etc.) and bioterrorism.

Around 30 countries and health-related international organizations joined the GHSA as members at the time of its launch. The membership has since been expanded to 71 countries, 10 international organizations, NGOs, and academia.

This way, the GHSA has made efforts to prepare and implement the Action Packages* that aim to enhance the global community’s capacity to prepare for and respond to emerging infectious diseases. Such efforts include conducting a Joint External Evaluation (JEE) for countries, establishing the standards for evaluating the capacity of preparedness for and response to emerging infectious diseases, etc.

* Antibiotic resistance, zoonotic diseases, biosafety, immunization, real-time surveillance, laboratory systems, capacity building, legislation, and finance.

The Republic of Korea has continued actively engaging in the GHSA as a key member. The ROK adopted the ‘Seoul Declaration,’ the global community’s first commitment to health security, at the 2015 GHSA Ministerial Meeting held in Seoul, and acted as a chair of the Steering Committee in 2017. The ROK is currently taking the lead in the Immunization Action Package.

The upcoming GHSA Ministerial Meeting in Seoul is the 7^th meeting^* since its launch, with the main topic of “Action for the Next Phase of the GHSA after COVID-19.”

* The GHSA Ministerial Meeting was held in the U.S. in 2014, in the Republic of Korea in 2015, in the Netherlands in 2016, in Uganda in 2017, in Indonesia in 2018, and in Thailand via a video conference in 2020.

To prepare the Ministerial Meeting at a working level, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency formed a GHSA Task Force, and has since been working together with the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea.

The Meeting will serve as an opportunity to review and evaluate how the global community responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the meeting, the GHSA’s vision and role for the preparedness for future infectious diseases in the post-COVID-19 era will be presented with a strong emphasis as well.

Also, at the meeting, there will be a call for participants to proactively take action and engage in implementing the Action Packages for preparedness for and response to global health security threats such as emerging infectious diseases.

In addition, at the ministerial meeting scheduled to be held on 30^th November, the members will reiterate the goal and vision of the GHSA and announce the ‘New Seoul Declaration’ that expresses their strong commitment to actively engaging in the GHSA activities for the next phase from 2024 to 2028.

The three-day GHSA event will also present diverse programmes, including expert forums, a Disease X simulation exercise, and site visits.

The expert forum, comprised of 9 sessions in total, will bring together officials from governments and international organizations to share their best practices and experiences on COVID-19 response as well as various presentations for capacity building.

< Topics of the Expert Forum and the Schedule (Draft) >

Also, the Disease X simulation exercise will provide an opportunity to explore ways to respond to Disease X, an emerging infectious disease, from the perspectives of global solidarity. During the session, participants will engage in a tabletop exercise based on a scenario of a Disease-X outbreak, and then discuss diverse cases on emerging infectious diseases and response measures.

KDCA Commissioner PECK Kyong Ran said: “The world has been going through a long COVID-19 tunnel for more than two and a half years until now. This has firmly solidified my belief that the global community needs to work closely together to prepare for and respond to infectious diseases in helping build a world safer from health security threats.”

Commissioner Peck added: “With the currently increasing attention to health security threats from infectious diseases, we have opened the expert forum to the general public and designed it in a meaningful way. So, I am looking forward to many citizens’ participation in the forum.”

Commissioner Peck also said: “As the GHSA Ministerial Meeting is a large international gathering, we will make the utmost effort in collaboration with relevant Ministries to ensure that there will be no threat to the safety of participants and all the infection risks will be kept and managed under complete control during the event.

As Health Ministers from member countries and officials from relevant organizations are now registering for the Meeting, further details on the plan of the Meeting will be provided after the plan is finalized.

Anyone can participate in the expert forum after registration via the website (ghsa2022.com) in advance. We are looking forward to valuable and diverse insights from the general public.