US Moves to Redefine Global Health Rules With New Draft Pacts

The US State Department has prepared templates for new bilateral health agreements that would give Washington expanded oversight of disease surveillance, outbreak reporting and data sharing in partner countries, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg News .

Countries would notify the US within one day of detecting infectious disease outbreaks, share pathogen samples within five days and defer to US Food and Drug Administration decisions about using medicines on an emergency basis, according to a 21-page memorandum of understanding template and a 13-page technical guide, both marked “Sensitive But Unclassified.”

Taken together, the documents — which align with the ...