Securitization Of Influenza Vaccine

Securitizing a disease on the level of influenza has allowed world governments to put more funding into promoting vaccinations as well as understanding how the disease itself affects their country (Kamradt-Scott, 2012). When the government considered influenza as a security risk, it would allow them to plan for, diagnose, and handle pandemics with a strategic plan. They were able to put more funding into ending the pandemic sooner, hopefully saving a lot of lives, by getting medicines and vaccinations out to the areas that were most desperate quicker than they could have done previously. However, when policies were deemed insufficient based on their significance to each countries domestic need, a new department within the United Nations known as the United Nations System Influenza Coordinator was established to work with all member nations to develop a universal plan (Kambradt-Scott, …show more content…
However with this and other agencies forming worldwide and new laws going into effect, pharmaceutical companies were using the securitization of influenza to their benefit. Pharmaceutical companies were bidding on contracts worth billions in exchange for promising the government that enough vaccines would be available should there be another outbreak. So while forming a new alliance to diagnose and prevent another pandemic had worldwide benefits hopefully preventing catastrophic loss of life, it also had a negative effect on the amount of funding we were putting worldwide into pharmaceutical companies to have a vaccine available in the event that a pandemic was to occur without knowing the strain of the virus that would take hold and if the vaccine would be enough