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Until the last two decades of the 20th century, health had never been an issue on the international politica agenda, nor was it considered a threat to international security. Moreover, the successes achieved during the 1960s provided a false sense of safety to what regards the infectious diseases, as it was thought that the biggest challenges to health were to be the non communicable diseases. And they are. The global overall mortality rate is dominated by cardiovascular diseases and cancer. But the HIV/Aids pandemics, the anthrax attacks of 2001, the rapid global spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic, the E. coli O104 (STEC O104:H4) outbreak in Germany, and the recent Ebola epidemic have all demonstrated the considerable human, political, and economic costs that result from outbreaks of infectious disease. This paper examines the processes that led to the securitization of public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]