The spread of infectious disease threats—particularly those with pandemic potential, including Avian flu, H1N1 flu, and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)—has and continues to present a grave health, security and humanitarian threat regionally and globally with direct implications for peacekeeping efforts.

Upon the publication of "Pandemics and Peace: Public Health Cooperation in Zones of Conflict" (USIP Press, June 2011),  panelists Dr. Jose Fernandez, Dr. Allyn Taylor, and author Dr. William J. Long discussed the relationship between pandemics and peace.  Topics included the correlation between infectious disease control and the use of military forces, the successes and challenges of the implementation of the new International Health Regulations, the relationship between public health cooperation and transnational political cooperation, and the U.S. role in global health cooperation.

Speakers

• William J. Long
  Professor and Chair
  Sam Nunn School of International Affairs
  Georgia Institute of Technology
  USIP Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow, 2009-2010
• Jose Fernandez
  Acting Deputy Director
  Division of International Health Security
  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response
  United States Department of Health and Human Services
• Allyn L. Taylor
  Visiting Professor of Law
  Georgetown University Law Center
• Leonard Rubenstein, Moderator
  Chair, USIP Health and Peacebuilding Working Group
  Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
• Chantal De Jonge Oudraat, Introductions
  Director
  Jennings Randolph Fellowship Program
  United States Institute of Peace

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• Social Reconstruction and Human Security
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