Alexandra Phelan

Alexandra Phelan is a faculty member of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University School of Medicine and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University. She specializes in legal and policy issues that are related to emerging and reemerging infectious diseases, as well as health threats posed by climate change.

Alexandra Louise Phelan
Alma materMonash University, BS (2006), LL.B. (2009)
The Australian National University, LL.M. (2012)
Georgetown University Law Center, S.J.D. (2019)
Scientific career
FieldsHealth Security, International Law
InstitutionsGeorgetown University (2014 – Present)
Doctoral advisorLawrence O. Gostin
WebsiteFaculty website

Education and early career

Phelan attended Eltham College before attending Monash University in Melbourne, Australia where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Sciences in 2006 and her Bachelor of Laws degree in 2009, focusing on human rights and health security.[1] There, she published an honors thesis entitled Implementing Australia's health security legislation: international obligations, validity and human rights, which examined Australia's implementation of the 2005 International Health Regulations.[2]

For her graduate work, Phelan attended The Australian National University, where she received her Master of Laws degree in 2013, specializing in international law and global health security.[3] During that time, she also worked as a solicitor at the Supreme Court of Victoria and High Court of Australia, since she was admitted in 2010. In 2013, she moved to the United States to attend Georgetown University Law Center, where she completed her Doctorate of Law (S.J.D.) degree in 2019 under the mentorship of legal scholar Lawrence O. Gostin. Her doctoral work investigated how international law can facilitate response to and prevention of infectious diseases.

Research and career

Phelan joined the faculty at Georgetown University as a member of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University School of Medicine, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. There, she continues her research on legal and policy issues surrounding infectious diseases around the world, which have included Ebola, Zika, and now SARS-CoV-2 (the novel coronavirus). Her research also factors in concerns around human rights in approaches to deal with disease containment and mitigation. For example, she was critical of a rule proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2016 that would expand its powers to screen, test, and quarantine people traveling in the United States during a disease outbreak.[4] Instead, she proposed adding in basic due process steps to ensure the proper checks and balances that would respect civil liberties.

She currently serves on the National Academy of Sciences Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases, which is currently advising the government on the rapidly developing science and policy issues around the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.[5] She is also a consultant for the World Health Organization and the World Bank Group and was formerly a consultant for GAVI.[6]

Work on the Ebola epidemic

Phelan was involved with the public health response that took place during the Western African Ebola virus epidemic, as well as with subsequent outbreaks of Ebola in Africa, consulting for both the World Health Organization and affected countries.[7] During the initial outbreak, she co-authored a recommendation to the United Nations, advocating for the need for a Security Council Resolution to ensure peace and security in light of the epidemic, noting the disease could exacerbate political unrest in affected countries.[8] She later authored a legal analysis of the United States response to the epidemic, offering legal solutions to gaps in pandemic preparedness.[9] In February 2019, she and her colleagues called for the WHO to declare the epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in order to galvanize the international community to provide political, financial, and technical support to prevent the disease from spreading further.[10][11] The WHO ultimately made the declaration in July 2019, several months after the initial call to action.[12]

Work on COVID-19

Phelan has been monitoring the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic since the disease began to emerge in Wuhan in late 2019. In late January 2020, she advocated that the WHO should declare the novel coronavirus a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) as a signal to the international community to launch a coordinated public health response.[13][14]

Phelan has also been critical of reports that Chinese officials cordon sanitaire in the Hubei Province, forcing the quarantine of those in the region.[13][15] She notes that the Liberian government's forced quarantine of 60 to 120 thousand people in West Point, Monrovia during the 2014 Ebola outbreak led to violence and public mistrust that exacerbated the spread of the virus.[14] The lockdown may have also limited access to medical supplies and overburdened hospitals during a critical time, so Phelan has also advocated for an investigation into the impact of the forced lockdown.[16] Phelan has asserted that cultivating public trust, while also preserving human rights, is essential for combatting the growing crisis. She also cautioned the United States against initiating a travel ban on people from countries affected by the novel coronavirus, as bans can break international trust.[17]

As the crisis has grown, Phelan and her colleagues have developed a set of recommendations for ensuring COVID-19 control measures are both equitable and inclusive to respect the needs of vulnerable populations, both in terms of increasing access to testing and treatment, as well as access to reliable and timely information.[18] They argue that failure to take such an approach will undermine response efforts to the pandemic, eroding trust among these marginalized communities and frontline healthcare workers.

Key publications
  • "Covid-19: control measures must be equitable and inclusive." BMJ 2020; 368 doi:10.1136/bmj.m1141
  • "The novel coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China: challenges for global health governance." JAMA 2020;323(8):709-710. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.1097
  • "The Ebola Epidemic: A public health emergency." JAMA 2014;312(11):1095-1096. doi:10.1001/jama.2014.11176

Awards and honors

References
  1. "Human rights on agenda". www.heraldsun.com.au. 2013-03-05. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  2. Phelan, Alexandra Louise (2009). Implementing Australia's health security legislation : international obligations, validity and human rights (Thesis thesis).
  3. Andrianatos, Veronica (2018-08-17). "Using International Law to prevent Ebola and Zika outbreaks". ANU College of Law. Retrieved 2020-04-04.
  4. Yong, Ed (2016-12-30). "The CDC's New Quarantine Rule Could Violate Civil Liberties". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  5. "Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats". www.nationalacademies.org. Retrieved 2020-04-04.
  6. "WHO | Update and summary guide to the report: Advancing the Right to Health – The Vital Role of Law". WHO. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  7. Segal, Jillian; Landsberg, Judith (2016-08-24). "The Grattan Institute is wrong. We need more science students, not fewer". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  8. King, Tim (2014-09-18). "O'Neill Institute Statement on the United Nations Security Council Resolution on the Ebola Outbreak | O'Neill Institute". oneill.law.georgetown.edu. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  9. "The Ebola Sentinel: a legal analysis of US pandemic preparedness". Ebola's message : public health and medicine in the twenty-first century. Evans, Nicholas G., 1985-, Smith, Tara C., 1976-, Majumder, Maimuna S. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. 2016. pp. 111–126. ISBN 978-0-262-33619-2. OCLC 960448151.CS1 maint: others (link)
  10. Gostin, Lawrence; Phelan, Alexandra; Coutinho, Alex Godwin; Eccleston-Turner, Mark; Erondu, Ngozi; Filani, Oyebanji; Inglesby, Tom; Katz, Rebecca; Maleche, Allan; Nuzzo, Jennifer B.; Tomori, Oyewale (2019-02-16). "Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: time to sound a global alert?". The Lancet. 393 (10172): 617–620. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30243-0. ISSN 0140-6736. PMID 30732850.
  11. Gulland, Anne (2019-06-26). "Long-running Ebola outbreak is now an international health emergency, say experts". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  12. "WHO declares Ebola outbreak in Congo a global health emergency". www.cbsnews.com. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  13. CohenJan. 22, Jon; 2020; Pm, 5:45 (2020-01-22). "WHO panel puts off decision on whether to sound alarm on rapid spread of new virus". Science | AAAS. Retrieved 2020-04-05.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. Phelan, Alexandra L.; Katz, Rebecca; Gostin, Lawrence O. (2020-02-25). "The Novel Coronavirus Originating in Wuhan, China: Challenges for Global Health Governance". JAMA. 323 (8): 709–710. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.1097. ISSN 0098-7484. PMID 31999307.
  15. Fifield, Anna; Hawkins, Derek; Taylor, Adam; Wan, William (2020-02-18). "Director of Wuhan hospital dies of coronavirus as death toll passes 2,000 in China". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  16. Rauhala, Emily; Wan, William; Shih, Gerry (2020-03-11). "First, China. Then, Italy. What the U.S. can learn from extreme coronavirus lockdowns". Washington Post. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  17. Yong, Ed (2020-02-03). "The New Coronavirus Is a Truly Modern Epidemic". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  18. "COVID-19: Scientists urge 'equitable and inclusive' response". www.medicalnewstoday.com. Retrieved 2020-04-05.
  19. "2019 Women of Influence are champions of reinvention". Australian Financial Review. 2019-09-09. Retrieved 2020-04-04.
  20. Security, UPMC Center for Health. "UPMC Center for Health Security Announces 2015 Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity". www.prnewswire.com. Retrieved 2020-04-04.
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