McNabb and Chungong BMC Public Health 2010, 10(Suppl 1):S3 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/S1/S3 Page 3 of 7 Figure 1. Eight Keys to Comprehensive Health Protection and their Relationship to the Eight Core Capacities of the International Health Regulations 2005. emergencies, particularly with regard to epidemiologic investigations, laboratory diagnoses and community and clinical management of cases” and “to continue, in consultation with relevant intergovernmental agencies and other international organizations, to strengthen global surveillance of infectious diseases, water quality, and food safety, and related activities such as the revision of the International Health Regulations and development of WHO’s food safety strategy, by coordinating information gathering on potential health risks and disease outbreaks, data veriﬁcation, analysis and dissemination, by providing support to laboratory networks, and by making a strong contribution to any international humanitarian response, as required.” [18,19]. The WHO plays a role in the international response to accidental or deliberate use of biological and chemical agents or radio-nuclear materials that aﬀect health. They have a vision for international public health security, ready to respond collectively to the threat of epidemics and other public health emergencies, both natural and man-made. Correspondingly, WHO has adopted mechanisms for supporting countries and strengthening the international response [10]. Among global public health stakeholders there now seems to exist both the political will and an acknow- ledged, if yet undeﬁned, overlapping interest and mutual beneﬁt to achieving comprehensive, eﬀective and eﬃ- cient global, multiple-hazard public health surveillance. There are areas where security and public health interests are seen to be at odds. However, some countries may not wish to share public health information with other countries that may be used for the security or economic advantage of the other nation. These perceptions have been a challenge to global public health surveillance in recent years and may be considered a key challenge going forward. Eight keys to comprehensive health protection In order for these three movements to empower and enhance surveillance competencies and lead to the end- state perspective described here, eight prerequisites or conditions should be in place (Figure 1). They include politics, policies, priorities, perspectives, procedures,