Health, Border and Mobility Management: IOM's Framework for Empowering Governments and Communities to Prevent, Detect and Respond to Health Threats along the Mobility Continuum

Although IOM’s position during the acute phase of the Ebola epidemic was in responding to ‘urgent health and operational gaps in order to save lives’, IOM quickly aligned its EVD response across Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and neighbouring ‘ring’ countries by implementing the Health, Border and Mobility Management (HBMM) framework. At the centre of this initiative is the realization that by better understanding population mobility, more targeted and evidence-informed responses can be mounted at critical locations along human mobility pathways. Enhancing national capacities to better prevent, detect and respond to any future disease outbreaks and other health threats along such pathways is also emphasised.