Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s “VOICES”: Our Global Health Security is Only as Strong as our Weakest Link
Roslyn Morauta, vice chair of the Board of the Global Fund, discusses the importance of addressing regional and global health challenges to ensure global health security, using Papua New Guinea as an example. Morauta writes, “With Papua New Guinea only four kilometers from Australia at its nearest point, failure to address TB or an outbreak of any infectious disease is a threat to the health and economic security of my native Australia. TB is airborne and highly contagious, so a raging TB epidemic could easily destabilize the Asia Pacific region. One weak link can affect everyone. … The Global Fund model increases accountability and shared responsibility and helps countries on their road to self-reliance by fostering domestic investments in health. … Our global health security is only as strong as our weakest link.” This article first appeared in The Mandarin (6/12).