The amended international health regulations: Implications and challenges for domestic legal frameworks

The World Health Organisation's International Health Regulations were amended in May 2024, with a number of implications for countries to amend their legal and institutional frameworks. This perspective highlights two key areas of focus in the amendments-the importance of multisectoral coordination and subnational work - and explores their links to health security challenges and to concrete country experiences. National legal and institutional frameworks constitute a key enabling mechanism for effective public health systems capable of preventing, detecting, and responding promptly to public health events and emergencies, and the recent IHR amendments provide a new impetus for WHO Member States to make these changes.