Year: 2022

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. May 18, 2022 By Nellie Bristol The U.S. government, with co-hosts Germany, Indonesia, Belize, and Senegal, galvanized a much needed blast of attention and resources toward the coronavirus pandemic and future preparedness at the second Global COVID-19 Summit May 12. In addition to new financial commitments totaling $3.2 billion, country leaders, philanthropists, private sector officials, and non-governmental organizations pledged policy changes, vaccine doses, health worker trainings, and dissemination of local lessons learned. The biggest winner was the newly conceptualized financial intermediary fund for pandemic preparedness and global health security to be housed at the World Bank, which received new pledges of $712 million, including an additional $200 million from the U.S. Other commitments to multilateral efforts supported the ACT-Accelerator, COVAX, and CEPI, though…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. April 21, 2022 By Nellie Bristol We are at a crucial turning point in the COVID-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of Omicron, many countries are more than ready to transition out of the emergency phase of the pandemic – particularly wealthy countries where vaccines, therapeutics and tests are readily available. But for many low- and middle-income countries, large portions of their populations remain vulnerable to severe illness and death from COVID-19. Unfortunately, the familiar mantra “no one is safe anywhere until everyone is safe everywhere” is losing its power as a motivator to support the global response to the pandemic. High-income countries are moving on and turning their attention to other domestic and geopolitical issues. Meanwhile, poorer countries are being left behind without…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. March 30, 2022 By Beth Boyer We are at a pivotal moment in the course of the pandemic and there is growing recognition that a shift in strategy is needed. In a new report released this week, the COVID GAP team calls for actions to chart a path forward for a sustainable control strategy for COVID-19. The Path Forward Our new report, The Path Forward, written in consultation with close to 50 experts from low- and middle-income countries, calls for an urgent shift in the global pandemic strategy that would rapidly change from an emergency crisis management approach to a sustainable control strategy that also helps to build resilient health systems better prepared to address future COVID-19 outbreaks and other public health threats. Driving the…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. March 15, 2022 By Beth Boyer and Andrea Taylor Local manufacturing capacity has been highly correlated to earlier access to life-saving health interventions, as demonstrated with COVID-19 vaccines. The concentration of COVID-19 vaccine production in high-income countries (HICs) – particularly for mRNA vaccines – contributed to the unequal distribution that continues today. Most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) had to depend on vaccine imports for their supply. There are some notable exceptions, such as India and China, where strong pre-pandemic investments in vaccine manufacturing capacity meant they were ready to produce doses at scale in 2021. But for most LMICs, reliance on vaccine shipments from other countries often meant they were at the back of the delivery queue and subject to delays from export restrictions.…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. January 31, 2022 By Valerie J. Parker and Beth Boyer   Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, accurate and timely testing has been critical for diagnosis, disease surveillance, and containment strategies. Diagnostic capacity, however, has been a challenge for countries at all income levels, and has been further stressed by surges driven by new variants. Now, with promising oral therapeutics entering the market, diagnostics are even more crucial as they are integral to the roll-out and effective use of the new antivirals. Not all tests are created equal There are two different types of diagnostic tests that are most commonly used, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. PCR tests are the gold standard in testing. They have higher sensitivity and can often detect infection prior…

The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. January 14, 2022 By Beth Boyer and Andrea Taylor Another year of the pandemic has come and gone. 2021 kicked off with a glimmer of hope as the first few COVID-19 vaccines reached the market. However, the tremendous undertaking of vaccinating the world got off to a rocky start and much of the world remained unvaccinated throughout the year. More than 9 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered worldwide, with 50% of the world’s population considered fully vaccinated by the end of 2021. But global vaccination coverage was uneven and inequitable. As the virus circulated through largely unvaccinated areas, new and more dangerous variants emerged. These variants, including delta and omicron, led to surges in cases. At the end of 2021, the…