January 13, 2011
The Question
What are the incentives for countries to invest in disease surveillance and to report outbreaks to international health authorities?
What we found
Determining the economic and public health incentives, and drawbacks, of a country to invest in disease surveillance and to report outbreaks are varied and complex. Non-reporting carries no penalties and warnings continue to depend on the self-interest of nations. Reporting may trigger trade sanctions that can impose large economic costs.
Countries may also report an outbreak in order to obtain international assistance for containing the outbreak before it develops into a full blown epidemic. If subsidies are conditioned on reporting, countries will have a further incentive to curtail their own surveillance. If a country does not surveil, it cannot report an outbreak.
Why it matters
More stringent measures and regulations need to be implemented by the WHO and other relevant parties. The WHO should review a country’s surveillance system and verify a country’s negative test results. The WHOs goal would be to make a country’s private information on its probability of an outbreak verifiable.
