ASSESSING THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL MARITIME HEALTH REGULATIONS IN CONTROLLING EPIDEMICS

Abstract

Large passenger vessels, including cruise ships, are highly susceptible to infectious diseases, as evidenced by the recent COVID-19 pandemic and previous health incidents associated with other viruses and ailments.Managing severe disease outbreaks within the marine sector is a considerable challenge, focusing on mitigating the substantial dangers of uncontrolled transmission through risk management for shipping operations or alternative ship designs.This study addresses the difficulty by including health considerations into marine safety assessment, consideringshipping businesses’ daily risk management practices, the Formal Safety Analysis (FSA), and the Risk-Based Design (RBD) methodology.Health risk assessment is integrated into the structure concerning significant epidemics, addressing their likelihood of recurrence and repercussions.The outcome is a systematic and formalized procedure derived from the FSA, constructed by RBD requirements.Utilizing an appropriate risk metric, the system must evaluate health hazards and risk control alternatives while factoring in cost-effectiveness and additional factors in an in-depth evaluation.Future actions involve the integration of the structure into shipping and dissemination scenarios for actual installation and adaptation to industrial requirements, while taking into account lessons learned and procedures from the medical sector.