Over the last decades global health is increasingly considered to be a security issue. Organizations as the World Health Organization (WHO) and National Public Health Authorities emphasize more and more that with the intensifying global circulation of humans, animals, and agricultural products pathogens are spreading around the world more rapidly, causing threats to national security. Outbreaks of SARS, the Asian flu, Ebola and Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) illustrate that these ‘pathogens’ not only affect (population) health but can have tremendous social, political, economic and military impacts as well, which threaten the stability of states and regions.

This debate on securitization of health is the topic of the 8th Global and European Health Symposium. The debate will be enlightened by the views from our guest speakers, with backgrounds in research, policy making, and NGOs and will be an excellent opportunity to exchange ideas and solutions. The key note lecture will be provided by Dr. Simon Rushton from the University of Sheffield, UK, Department of Politics, research theme Health and Development. Further contributions to this symposium so far include: Dr. Meike Wolf from Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, assistant professor of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology, focusing on the preparedness of infrastructures and Veerle Vanlerberghe, ITG Antwerp, a member of the outbreak research team.

Programme details and registration