What has COVID-19 taught you about disease and how do you think the world needs to prepare for pandemics in the future?
We need to look to having a better, safer, and fairer world post COVID. We need to be better prepared, we need to ensure every person has genuine access to health care, we need to structure our societies so we reduce the things that increase the likelihood and severity of pandemics, e.g. overcrowding, marginalisation, inequity and last but not least we have to look after the health of our planet- climate change, the animal world, our forests.
What has COVID-19 taught the scientific community about working together and collaborating to achieve goals?
Right from the start the scientific community came together- heeded the call WHO made when we activated the R&D Blueprint in the first week of January 2020- and worked tirelessly, together sharing ideas, discoveries and information- in true solidarity. The fruit of this solidarity is now evident- good diagnostic tests, we know about which treatments work and of course we now have vaccines. Vaccines are giving us a second window of opportunity to bring the pandemic under control. We must not squander it.
If we truly work together- build on the solidarity so many have shown, we will beat this together. But we are at a critical juncture, much depends on staying the course and working together- and continuing to apply the traditional public health measures while rolling out the vaccines, fairly, and appropriately to the highest risk groups first, in every country on the planet.
What has COVID-19 taught you/your industry about disease and how do you think the world needs to prepare for pandemics in the future?
One key lesson that we’ve learned from this pandemic is that nobody is safe until everyone is safe because infectious diseases do not respect borders. Therefore, global equitable access to vaccines, particularly protecting health care workers and those most-at-risk – wherever they are, and whatever their income level – is the only way to lessen the public health and economic impact of the pandemic on individuals, communities, and nations.
This is why the COVAX Facility was set up. COVAX is a global collaboration co-led by Gavi, the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and WHO – working in partnership with participating countries governments, vaccine manufacturers, UNICEF, the World Bank, and others.
This unprecedented international collaboration in terms of technological innovation, funding for vaccines and new models of public-private cooperation to enable rapid roll-out of vaccines once doses are delivered is going to be a valuable learning for future pandemics.
What has COVID-19 taught the scientific community about working together and collaborating to achieve goals?
Ensuring access to vaccines during a global pandemic is different to at any other because the vaccine is needed everywhere on a similar timescale. Rich and poor countries are affected and therefore questions around pricing, manufacturing and overall supply become much more complex.
While we have started delivering the first doses and this is already faster than when compared to the H1N1 last pandemic experience, our work is not done yet and the world must continue to work together if we are to successfully deliver on our mission.
COVID-19 has taught us that to address the complexities that lie ahead – from regulatory approvals to readiness and capacity, supply fluctuations to delivery and logistics or funding – the scientific and medical community must all work together if we are to successfully deliver on the largest global vaccine rollout in history.
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