The Quad Health Security Partnership promotes coordination and collaboration between Australia, India, Japan and the US, with partners in the Indo-Pacific, to strengthen regional and global health security. This partnership builds on successful collective efforts to provide safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines to the Indo-Pacific and beyond, as well as broader support for regional economic recovery and revitalisation.
As a first priority of the new Quad Health Security Partnership, announced at the 2023 Quad Leaders’ Summit, Quad partners are implementing a package of measures to strengthen the Indo-Pacific’s ability to detect and respond to outbreaks of diseases with epidemic or pandemic potential. They committed funding to support field epidemiology and outbreak responder training, boost disease surveillance, improve data systems and strengthen public health laboratories. The Quad Leaders’ Joint Statement can be found here.
The Quad supports health security in the Indo-Pacific, including assisting better coordination of outbreak responses. Quad partners have hosted side events at the World Health Assembly since 2022, on best practice in combatting vaccine hesitancy and tuberculosis. Quad countries have participated in two pandemic preparedness tabletop exercises, hosted respectively by the US and India.
The Quad Health Security Partnership is an evolution of the Quad Vaccine Partnership. The Quad Vaccine Partnership, formed in March 2021, coordinated the efforts of Quad partners to deliver almost 800 million safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine doses globally – including more than 400 million doses to Indo-Pacific countries. Quad support also included support for vaccine manufacturing, technical assistance to national medicines regulatory agencies and ministries of health, and the provision of consumables and cold-chain infrastructure, either directly or through multilateral channels including COVAX.