Melissa Slogan

The Launch and Scale Speedometer blog series. February 8, 2022 By Andrea Taylor We are excited to release data on purchases of therapeutics to treat COVID-19. The latest numbers are available from the Duke Global Health Innovation Center at the Launch and Scale Speedometer project here. Oral therapeutics for COVID-19 have been heralded as a game changer, with the first two recently coming to market from Pfizer (Paxlovid) and Merck (molnupiravir). For the past year, vaccines and social distancing measures have been our only significant tools to combat COVID19. As we try to prepare for whatever comes after the omicron variant, which caused infection and hospitalization rates to surge globally, oral therapeutics provide one more line of defense, particularly for those at most risk of bad outcomes. It is important to note that the…

The Launch and Scale Speedometer blog series. January 28, 2022 By Stephanie Stan On January 26, 2022, the White House announced that the United States has shipped over 400 million COVID-19 vaccine doses. This milestone has established America as the global leader in COVID vaccine donations, shipping more donated doses than any other country. This achievement comes as the world hits its own milestone: administering 10 billion doses globally as of January 28, 2022. But as we’ve seen throughout the pandemic response, doing more is not the same as doing enough.  While the US is out front in its commitments and actions, no country, and no multilateral organization, is doing enough to end the pandemic. Global vaccine inequity, exacerbated by a lack of timely actual donations rather than pledges, places strains on the limited supply of COVID vaccines in low-…

The Launch and Scale Speedometer blog series. January 11, 2022 Every day, women and children around the world die from conditions and diseases for which proven and effective health interventions exist, but are inaccessible or reach them too slowly. Lifesaving interventions addressing the MNCH continuum are imperative at all levels of the health system. Barriers in the pathways to the introduction and scaling of these interventions are part and parcel to the failure to get them to the end-user. Conversely, mechanisms that support the uptake of interventions should be encouraged and explored further to foster their use and speed their delivery to the end user. The latest research by the Launch and Scale Speedometer team, A Qualitative Analysis of the Introduction and Uptake Pathways, Enablers, and Barriers of Health Interventions in India and…

The Launch and Scale Speedometer blog series. November 26, 2021 By Andrea Taylor We are excited to announce the release of new analysis and recommendations through our initiative, the COVID Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP), a collaboration between Duke University and the Covid Collaborative. There are a plethora of dashboards and datasets on COVID-19 response, including vaccine supply and vaccination coverage, providing detail on what is happening both globally and at the country level. However, the existence of these dashboards is not resulting in actions that meet the pressing needs. The COVID GAP pulls together key data across multiple sources to highlight the need and provide evidence-based recommendations to catalyze effective actions and share promising strategies. Our latest report focuses on the 40% and 70% vaccination coverage targets, which have been widely endorsed by global leaders…

The Launch and Scale Speedometer blog series. November 18, 2021 By Stephanie Stan [caption id="attachment_2946" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Source: WHO[/caption] Scaling Lifesaving Interventions Faster: A case study on the accelerated uptake of nOPV2, the first vaccine to receive WHO Emergency Use Listing  Widespread administration of oral polio vaccines (OPVs) has resulted in reduced incidence of polio and the eradication of wild poliovirus type 2 and type 31,2. Despite progress reducing the burden of polio globally, type 2 circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV2) has continued to spread, primarily through Africa and Asia1,3: in 2019, there were 366 cases of cVDPV2 globally and by 2020, this number had increased to 1,069 cases1,4,5. The novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2)—a more genetically stable, next generation polio vaccine—was developed to prevent further spread and outbreaks of cVDPV2 throughout under-immunized populations, serving to save children from poliovirus-induced paralysis and death1. In…