Global health governance for travel health: lessons learned from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreaks in large cruise ships

BACKGROUND: The outbreak and global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) attracts a great deal of attentions to the problem of travel health. Cruise tourism is increasingly popular, with an estimated 30 million passengers transported on cruise ships worldwide each year. Safeguarding the health of cruise travelers during the entire travel is of ultimate importance for both the industry and global public health. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore the challenges and opportunities in travel health from the perspective of global health governance. METHODS: The global governance framework including problems, values, tools or regulations, and actors related to travel health were used to analyze the issues involved. RESULTS: Up to April 2020, nearly thirty cruise ship voyages reported COVID-19 cases. The Diamond Princess, Grand Princess and Ruby Princess cruise ship had over 1,400 total reported COVID-19 cases, and more than 30 deaths. A community with a common future in travel health is the core value of global health governance for travel health. The travel-related international regulations, including the International Health Regulation (IHR [2005]), United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) conventions should be further updated to deal with the travel health problems. The roles and responsibilities and the cooperation mechanisms of different actors are not clear in relation to the public health emergencies during the travel. CONCLUSION: Travel health transcends national borders and involves multilevel actors, thus needs global cooperation and governance. Regulations and legislation at global and country level are required to prevent large-scale humanitarian crisis on travel health. Multilateral coordination, cooperation and collaboration mechanisms between governments, intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations and industry are needed to build a better community of common destiny for travel health.