Progress of public health policy regarding global infectious diseases over the past decade in Japan

Abstract

This article aims to examine progress of public health policy regarding global infectious diseases over the past decade in Japan. A narrative review was conducted, overviewing items of the Infectious Disease Committee and the Tuberculosis Committee of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare between 2010 and 2019. The mean value of items discussed in each meeting were 9.7 items. Among these items, these committees have discussed about countermeasures in terms of reduced burden of indigenous infectious diseases such as measles, rubella and pertussis, and increased risk of imported infectious diseases such as Ebola virus disease, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, plague, avian influenza, pandemic influenza and tuberculosis. These changes regarding infectious diseases lead to loss of target population, difficulty of early detection, and market failure in old and new antibiotics and others, which requires challenge to scattered at-risk targets, effort to training and awareness, and creation of novel public health policy for research and development as well as production and supply. Over the past decade, public health policy regarding global infectious diseases have been one of the key targets under the triangle of global infectious disease, and recent experience of Coronavirus disease 2019 will further prioritize it in Japan. However, the principles of public health policy are globally vulnerable in the Post-Corona era, which can lead to the collapse of democratic way. To combat global infectious diseases without going off the road, we need to learn about the past history of public health policy.

Keywords: Global infectious disease; Japan; Public health policy.