{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,14]],"date-time":"2026-08-14T18:35:04Z","timestamp":1786732504645,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":49,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,14]],"date-time":"2026-08-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1786665600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001459","name":"Ministry of Education - Singapore","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["A-0006103-00-00"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["A-0006103-00-00"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001459","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosglobalpublichealth.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLOS Glob Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The \u2018health security\u2019 paradigm has reshaped global health since Covid-19, framing infectious diseases as existential threats and targeting marginalised populations as risky \u2018others\u2019 to surveil and contain. However, its exclusionary consequences for those \u2018othered\u2019 remain underexamined, particularly from the perspective of lived experience. Drawing on ethnographic and archival case studies in Lebanon, Nepal, Serbia, and Syria (2021\u20132025), we examine health security\u2019s \u2018other\u2019 face, the systematic exclusion of migrant, rural, and displaced populations from protection, ranging from vaccine apartheid to medicalised border controls. We argue that these are not abstract harms but embodied burdens, and that ethnographic perspectives are essential to reveal them. Rejecting the premise that securitisation as the only available logic, we propose five cooperative mechanisms, including demilitarised financing, a binding vaccine convention, and data sovereignty, to shift global health toward equity and care. The question is not whether we can imagine different futures, but whether we have the courage to build them.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pgph.0007105","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,14]],"date-time":"2026-08-14T17:58:01Z","timestamp":1786730281000},"page":"e0007105","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pgph.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The \u2018Other\u2019 face of health security: Reimagining epistemic attachments in global health"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"6","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0004-1843-8972","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Max D.","family":"L\u00f3pez Toledano","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mervat","family":"Alhaffar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0007-3290-1347","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Ali","family":"Alshalah","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Majd","family":"Saleh","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6674-1862","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Anna","family":"Durrance-Bagale","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Charnele","family":"Nunes","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6828-7501","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Esther","family":"Sharma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4174-7349","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Natasha","family":"Howard","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,14]]},"reference":[{"key":"pgph.0007105.ref001","volume-title":"Routledge Handbook of Global Health Security","author":"J Youde","year":"2014"},{"key":"pgph.0007105.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.4324\/9780203078563-10","article-title":"AIDS as a Security Threat","author":"P Fourie","year":"2014","journal-title":"Routledge Handbook of Global Health Security"},{"key":"pgph.0007105.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.4324\/9780203078563-29","article-title":"Whose interests is the securitization of health serving?","author":"DL DeLaet","year":"2014","journal-title":"Routledge Handbook of Health Security"},{"key":"pgph.0007105.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"328","DOI":"10.4324\/9780203078563-28","article-title":"Health Security and the Distortion of the Global Health Agenda","volume-title":"Routledge Handbook of Global Health Security","author":"MA Stevenson","year":"2014"},{"issue":"6","key":"pgph.0007105.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1136\/bmjgh-2024-018719","article-title":"Epistemic preparedness","volume":"10","author":"W Anderson","year":"2025","journal-title":"BMJ Glob Health"},{"issue":"2","key":"pgph.0007105.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1111\/maq.70025","article-title":"Zoonotic anxieties: The cultural politics of Nepal\u2019s quest for pandemic preparedness","volume":"40","author":"MD L\u00f3pez Toledano","year":"2025","journal-title":"Med Anthropol Q"},{"key":"pgph.0007105.ref007","author":"S Nanthini","year":"2023"},{"issue":"2","key":"pgph.0007105.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"173","DOI":"10.1089\/hs.2020.0030","article-title":"Military Participation in Health Security: Analysis of Joint External Evaluation Reports and National Action Plans for Health Security","volume":"19","author":"BM Forshey","year":"2021","journal-title":"Health Secur"},{"issue":"2","key":"pgph.0007105.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"155","DOI":"10.1017\/S0260210521000048","article-title":"Military responses to COVID-19, emerging trends in global civil-military engagements","volume":"47","author":"F Gibson-Fall","year":"2021","journal-title":"Rev Int Stud"},{"key":"pgph.0007105.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"187","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev-anthro-041520-093024","article-title":"Global health interventions: The military, the magic bullet, the deterministic model\u2014and intervention otherwise","volume":"52","author":"E Yates-Doerr","year":"2023","journal-title":"Ann Rev Anthropol"},{"key":"pgph.0007105.ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Honna. 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