Under its G20 presidency, India has proposed a medical countermeasure coordination platform to effectively deal with challenges of any COVID-like pandemic.
Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director at WHO Health Emergency Programme in Geneva, who is attending the third G20 Health Working Group meeting being held here from June 4 to 6, said the future of health and pandemic preparedness is stronger with the leadership of India in this meeting.
"We are discussing the pandemic preparedness and response and how to chart a future path so that we all respond better to the next pandemic.
"India in G20's leadership is highlighting this issue and talking about how we work together on medical countermeasures, how we make better vaccines and drugs, how do we get them to people quicker, and how do we make the whole system fair so that people who really need things get them as soon as possible," Dr Ryan said, adding, "India is in a very strong position to do that."
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In the aftermath of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 76th World Health Assembly, the pace of WHO negotiations on: 1) a pandemic treaty and 2) amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) will intensify over the coming months. WHO’s informal list of intergovernmental meetings is published here: https://apps.who.int/gb/gov/en/intergovernmental-meeting_en.html.
The Medical Countermeasures Platform that is being discussed by WHO and partners, has emerged clearly in the draft text of the Political Declaration on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, for the United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting in September 2023.
In the latest version of the text, dated June 20th, seen by Geneva Health Files, there have been several references to the medical countermeasures platform. Of course, this should not be surprising given that the idea for such a platform has steadily moved this year through WHO, the G7, the G20, the Johannesburg processes and now in New York.
[...] This policy brief looks at some of the interventions designed during the COVID-19 pandemic to counter the impact of excessive use of IP protection tools. Secondly, it assesses recent post-pandemic policy discussions, at every level, regarding the role of IP in relation to access to innovation. Finally, it sets out several recommendations on the management of IP and related policy processes in order to improve access to health technologies.
The World Health Organization declaration that “the global health emergency of COVID-19 is over” has removed the sense of urgency that for more than three years shaped global health discussions.1 As a result of the pandemic, the topic of intellectual property (IP) and its influence on access to health technologies was widely and intensely discussed. The support gathered by a waiver proposal on certain parts of the Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement, the creation of the COVID-19 Technologies Access Pool (C-TAP) and a number of national and regional initiatives aimed at scaling up production of health goods are just some examples of where the needs of the many were framed above pro昀椀ts and monopolies. Several policy processes that were set-aside, stalled or even stopped during the pandemic have resumed, while initiatives that originated in the response to the pandemic have either evolved or run their course. This policy brief looks at some of the interventions designed during the COVID-19 pandemic to counter the impact of excessive use of IP protection tools.
Through the experiences gained by accelerating new vaccines for both Ebola virus infection and COVID-19 in a public health emergency, vaccine development has benefited from a ‘multiple shots on goal’ approach to new vaccine targets. This approach embraces simultaneous development of candidates with differing technologies, including, when feasible, vesicular stomatitis virus or adenovirus vectors, messenger RNA (mRNA), whole inactivated virus, nanoparticle and recombinant protein technologies, which led to multiple effective COVID-19 vaccines. The challenge of COVID-19 vaccine inequity, as COVID-19 spread globally, created a situation where cutting-edge mRNA technologies were preferentially supplied by multinational pharmaceutical companies to high-income countries while low and middle-income countries (LMICs) were pushed to the back of the queue and relied more heavily on adenoviral vector, inactivated virus and recombinant protein vaccines. To prevent this from occurring in future pandemics, it is essential to expand the scale-up capacity for both traditional and new vaccine technologies at individual or simultaneous hubs in LMICs.
The Bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body set up to work towards a new Pandemic Accord has presented its version of a text building on the zero draft, and that, to an extent, draws on some of the newer suggestions provided by WHO member states. But in doing so, some say, the Bureau has had to make political choices in moving these sensitive negotiations forward.
None of this is surprising. A process as political as this one, will not please everybody. In fact, early reactions to the Bureau’s Text suggest that countries, the industry, activists and scholars have been disappointed. The process already risks being seen as a potentially unfulfilled promise that a new Pandemic Accord has come to embody.
The text shows weaker language on a number of key provisions including public funding disclosures, intellectual property waivers, but does contain potentially far-reaching provisions on pooling of tech, recognition of differentiated responsibilities and debt relief.
The Bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body set up to work towards a new Pandemic Accord has presented its version of a text building on the zero draft, and that, to an extent, draws on some of the newer suggestions provided by WHO member states. But in doing so, some say, the Bureau has had to make political choices in moving these sensitive negotiations forward. … The text shows weaker language on a number of key provisions including public funding disclosures, intellectual property waivers, but does contain potentially far-reaching provisions on pooling of tech, recognition of differentiated responsibilities and debt relief.
The World Health Organization’s new pandemic preparedness treaty is being watered down and stripped of the key stipulations needed to prevent another global health disaster, say leading international health experts and civil society groups.
WHO’s 194 member states agreed in December 2021 to draw up a new convention to ensure that the world would be prepared for future global health threats and to prevent the “catastrophic failure” seen during the covid pandemic.1
The “zero draft” of the accord, published in February, had excited observers because its scope went beyond the closest existing legally binding framework, the International Health Regulations. That draft stipulated strong obligations for information sharing and the importance of having a strong health workforce and universal healthcare, among other requirements.
This discussion paper examines why the ecosystem of infectious disease research and development (R&D) fails to meet people's needs and sets out potential routes for reform and key areas for discussion.
This paper looks at different stages of the ecosystem — from research priority-setting, clinical trials and regulation, manufacturing and product availability and affordability — and identifies problems, challenges and possible areas for change.