Never Again – Until Next Time? Push to Pandemic-Proof the World as Political Will Wanes

Health Policy Watch

The global will to ensure that COVID-19 is a “never-again” pandemic is dissipating fast, according to many delegates attending the World Health Assembly (WHA) and its plethora of side events – threatening initiatives such as local manufacturing of vaccines. … On Friday, the WHA passed a resolution to strengthen countries’ diagnostic testing capacity, stressing support for the local production of diagnostic tools and tests in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). … Meanwhile, Wellcome Trust, one of the biggest private donors of infectious disease response, kicked off a global conversation about what needs to be done in a discussion paper released a few days back that declares: “The R&D infrastructure ecosystem for infectious disease is unfit for purpose and requires ambitions overhaul.” … Wellcome points out that “resources are not allocated to research activities efficiently or equitably with whole fields suffering long-term neglect”. Key problems include “empty pipelines” for major infectious disease threats, especially affecting low-resource settings, barriers to registration, and lack of access. “Individuals’ ability to access lifesaving products often depends more on economics and geography than on need,” the Trust points out.

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