Effective pandemic governance is more important now than ever as pandemic risk factors like urbanization, the hypermobility of persons, trans-border trade, rapid population growth and changes to the environment and food systems all increase in tandem with the demands of globalization.(1) These transformative global shifts have fundamentally changed the way pathogens are spread around the world.(2) The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that newly emerging infectious disease outbreaks in one country are now only hours away from affecting many others.(3) Pandemics previously spread over years (e.g., bubonic plague in the 14th century), months (e.g., cholera epidemics in 19th century) or weeks (e.g., Spanish influenza of 1918-1919), but in today’s globalized world, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) took only 17 hours to spread half-way around the world from China to Canada. Future disease outbreaks are expected to take similarly short periods before they affect multiple countries across geographically distinct regions.(3) The current outbreak of H7N9 bird influenza in China (which spreads more easily from infected fowl to humans than the H5N1 strain did in 2003, according to Dr. Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s top influenza expert) is a stark reminder that the threat of a pandemic exists as an imminent threat to human health and international security.(4) Of notable concern is the fact that more than 30 unexpected outbreaks of previously unknown pathogens and re-emerging diseases were observed in the past two decades alone.(2) Although the great majority of new and re-emerging diseases have not caused pandemics, national health systems that can respond adequately to pandemic threats are fundamental to controlling pandemic-prone local disease outbreaks within a country or a region