Reimagining health security and preventing future pandemics: the NUS–Lancet Pandemic Readiness, Implementation, Monitoring, and Evaluation Commission

Over the past two decades, linking health and security has become a key frame through which to understand the dangers and threats that a highly infectious pathogen, irrespective of its origin or source, can pose to populations. The list of global health security concerns has expanded in recent years to include HIV/AIDS, Ebola virus disease, COVID-19, and pandemic preparedness and response, among others. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the shortcomings of understanding and measuring countries’ abilities to respond to public health risks through only a security lens. Moving forward, national, regional, and global organisations ought to evaluate their pandemic responses to identify and, most importantly, incorporate lessons learnt. A crucial component in the prevention, preparedness, and response to future health risks involves assessing countries’ capacities to detect and react adequately to emerging outbreaks.