Thailand has conducted its second round of Joint External Evaluation (JEE) for the International Health Regulations (IHR) core capacities from 31st October to 4th November 2022. Thailand is the first country in the world to complete the second round of JEE-IHR and utilizing the 3rd edition of JEE tool which was revised to incorporate the COVID-19 lessons and recommendations of the IHR review committee.
The JEE is part of the IHR Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and is a voluntary, multi-sectoral process to assess the country’s capacity to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to public health risks. The JEE allows countries to identify the most urgent needs and opportunities within their health security system for enhanced emergency preparedness, detection and response leading to consensus on national priorities to frame or update the National Action Plan for Health Security (NAPHS) with the requisite allocation of resources.
H.E. Mr. Anutin Charnvirakul, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Health, together with Dr. Narong Saiwong, Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Thares Krasnaiyarawiwong, Acting Director General of the Department of Disease Control and Dr. Samira Asma, Assistant Director-General, World Health Organization, Geneva joined the inaugural session, reaffirming the joint commitments of the country and WHO to strengthen national health security capacity to cope with the current pandemic and to prepare for potential future health emergencies.
The JEE team including 22 international experts mobilized by WHO, reviewed and discussed the evidence compiled and presented by the national technical teams, on 19 technical areas and agreed upon the scores and priority actions for each technical area. The JEE confirmed that Thailand in general, has high levels of IHR core capacities with several good practices that can be adopted by other countries. However, continued incremental investment in health security is recommended to sustain the gains achieved and rapidly implement priority actions identified, to further enhance the IHR core capacities.