On Friday 18 November, I attended the sixth ministerial forum of the Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI) in Rome, to agree actions to ensure a co-ordinated global response to health security issues, including preparing for an influenza pandemic.Actions agreed at the meeting included:A commitment to compare national flu pandemic plans to share information and expertise, and to better understand different approaches to pandemic planning;A commitment to work with the World Health Organisation to develop and test protocols for early containment through a full range of public health interventions, including medical counter measures and equipment;A commitment to further develop risk communication tools to ensure decision makers and health professionals have consistent information internationally to help manage an influenza pandemic and ensure the public are kept fully informed of action to take in a pandemic situation;A commitment to develop, with WHO, approaches to improving capacity and access to vaccines; andA commitment to work together to prepare for the Beijing pledging conference in January 2006, and to have a clear outline of prioritised action to attract the funding for implementation by multinational organisations.The United Kingdom has played an active role in developing and taking forward several areas of the GHSI's work programme. The GHSI was launched at a meeting of international Health Ministers in Ottawa in 2001. Membership includes representatives of the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico and United States together with the WHO and the European Commission for Health. The aims of the GHSI are to develop and implement co-operative, specialised public health protection measures in the event of a terrorist or natural incident.In partnership with the USA, the UK has played a leading role in taking work forward on pandemic influenza. In June this year, the UK hosted a workshop on modelling pandemic spread and control strategies and an international tabletop exercise on preparedness and response. This event brought together modellers from each of the eight GHSI countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the UK and the USA) to discuss potential response strategies at each stage of an emerging pandemic. Important work has also been undertaken to compare the pandemic influenza preparedness and response plans between countries to facilitate better planning and coordination.At the meeting, Health Ministers agreed a programme of action to ensure that national pandemic planning continues to dovetail with international planning and that we communicate effectively both nationally and internationally. We recognised the importance of ensuring our populations and healthcare professionals have the high quality, consistent international information they need to manage the consequences of an outbreak of pandemic flu.In addition, we agreed to share information and expertise to speed up the development and production of a pandemic flu vaccine. We also agreed to work together to boost global capacity for pandemic flu vaccine.Together with Canada, the UK has also led on work in the area of risk management and communication. A 24/7 emergency contact network for emergency communications is in place and several successful international communication exercises have been undertaken.A copy of the final ministerial statement from the Rome conference has been placed in the Library.

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