Georgetown University launches platform to navigate laws governing the prevention of infectious disease emergence worldwide

Georgetown University announces the launch of Analysis and Mapping of Policies for all Emerging Infectious Diseases (AMP for EID), a first-of-its-kind policy platform to enhance preparedness, prevention, and response efforts for emerging infectious diseases, including SARS, MERS, Ebola, and Covid-19. With over seventy international agreements related to global health – including some fifty agreements used during the Covid-19 pandemic – the centralized and free-to-access platform allows country leaders and experts to rapidly identify the policy environment for a given pathogen or health threat, accelerating pandemic preparedness and fortifying global health security.

“Covid-19 wasn’t the world’s first global health emergency, and it won’t be the last. Country responses to Covid-19 – a mix of mandates, relief measures, and military mobilizations – formed a complex policy environment that delayed collective response efforts and allowed the virus to spread unchecked,” said Dr. Rebecca Katz, Director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security and Principal Investigator of AMP for EID. “By having all policies related to global health security in one place, a decision maker can, at a glance, identify the international legal context in which an outbreak is unfolding, define roles for collaborators, highlight constraints on medical countermeasures and restrictions on data sharing, and clarify how neighboring countries may respond.”

AMP for EID centralizes information on which countries are parties to international agreements relevant to pandemic preparedness and response, what laws and regulations govern emerging infectious diseases, and how other relevant factors – such as export control and data sharing regulations – may impact a nation’s response to public health emergencies. Users of the AMP for EID platform can:

• Learn about the treaties and policies governing a specific topic;
• Access information about those treaties, such as which countries participate;
• Find a comprehensive list of policies and treaties enacted by a specific country; and
• Access and export data from the platform via an API.

“AMP for EID fills a critical gap in global health security by making crystal clear what had been opaque and gives policymakers access to important information, such as who is responsible for what, during a rapidly evolving emergency situation,” said Dr. Bruce Gellin, Chief of Global Public Health Strategy for The Rockefeller Foundation, which funded the platform’s creation. “It puts invaluable facts at decision makers’ fingertips at times when they need them most, helping them save time, money, and lives.”

“The data gathered by AMP for EID can also help researchers and policy makers identify areas where policies are unclear or lacking, as well as which policies would be most helpful for stopping infectious disease spread,” said Sara Hersey, Director of Collaborative Intelligence at the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. “These data contribute to ongoing research activities to assess what policies work under different types of governance structures, for what types of diseases, and based on the characteristics of the outbreak event itself.”

AMP for EID is a project of the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security. The principal investigator is Dr. Rebecca Katz, with Dr. Colin Carlson and Dr. Ellie Graeden acting as co-principal investigators. Other contributors include Lauren McGivern, Mackenzie Moore, Iktae Park, Dr. Alexandra Phelan, Dr. Prishanya Pillai, Hailey Robertson, Tess Stevens, Kate Toole, Ciara Weets, and Ryan Zimmerman. The platform will continue to grow as more data sources are incorporated. The platform can be accessed at http://ampeid.org.