A key driver in the effort to strengthen global public health security is the framework of the newly revised International Health Regulations (IHR [2005] ) (8) , the legally binding global agreement designed to build and strengthen national alert and response systems. Unanimously agreed upon by the World Health Assembly on May 23, 2005, the regulations are the result of experience gained and lessons learned about global public health security over the past 30 years. This global legal framework constitutes a "major development in the use of international law for public health purposes" (9) . It includes a commitment from WHO and from each of its 193 member states to improve capacity for disease prevention, detection, and response and provides ground rules to address national public health threats that have the potential to become global emergencies. The adoption of the new regulations ended a 10-year process of revision, stimulated by the pneumonic plague outbreak in India in 1994 (10) and the Ebola hemorrhagic fever outbreak in the former Zaire in 1995 (11) . The revised regulations have now entered into force for all WHO member states.