Public health is a highly controversial issue. It has been controversial since its first political appearance within Western history, in Thucydides’ account of the plague of Athens during the Peloponnesian Wars. From Hippocrates to Galen, in the initial structuring of the medical paradigm, we find the ethical and conceptual problems still alive today, during the age of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence applied to medicine.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been the most severe public health challenge the world has faced for over a century. It has posed a systemic threat to general healthcare worldwide and has highlighted poor global coordination in terms of medical issues, inadequate investment and access to healthcare. The more illustrious experts have emphasize that the world economy has been severely affected by Covis-19, which has caused increased money-laundering and cybercrime.

In its 2021 report, the U.S. National Intelligence Council report said that the pandemic showed the weakness of the global order and that the international institutions devised to face past crises are now inadequate to coordinate a global response to new challenges like the spread of Covid-19. US President Joe Biden has ordered the intelligence community to “redouble” efforts to investigate the origins of Covid-19. Thus, global health is too an intelligence matter – and its heavy economic implications are evident.

The term “enemy of the people” especially concerning public health, has been used in many contexts. There is a long list of public health foes, internal and external to the health system. Instead of talking about national problems, I have preferred to place them in their international context. Rather than simply discussing national problems I would like to place them in an international context.

Mariateresa Gammone