COVID Vaccine Research Update

News
The Launch and Scale Speedometer blog series. December 17, 2021 By Blen Biru Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa with a population of 118 million.  The first COVID-19 case in Ethiopia was identified on March 13, 2020  but, like many African countries, Ethiopia had relatively low reported cases and deaths during the first wave of infections compared with other parts of the world. However, in December 2020, a larger second wave brought increased level of infections and deaths, due to a combination of factors including lower adherence to stringent public health measures. Since August 2021, Ethiopia has been experiencing a third wave of infections, recording close to 300 deaths weekly and a test positive rate of 10-20% although cases have declined in November and December. The high positivity rate suggests that the likelihood of many more infections happening beyond…
Read More
COVID-19 pills are coming. Urgent action is needed to ensure equitable global access.

COVID-19 pills are coming. Urgent action is needed to ensure equitable global access.

News
The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. December 13, 2021 By Beth Boyer, Ethan Chupp, and Andrea Taylor For much of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines have been the primary focus to slow the spread of the virus. However, amid rising infection rates and low global vaccination coverage, effective therapeutics that can prevent severe disease could be a game changer. But only if we learn from the inequitable vaccine rollout and ensure global access from the beginning. Several treatments have been approved but are primarily used in high-income countries. Monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy has proven effective at preventing high-risk patients with mild-to-moderate disease from developing severe disease and being hospitalized. But mAb therapy is expensive, and is administered via infusion or injection which requires medical infrastructure, trained staff, equipment (that can add…
Read More
Lack of Supply or Demand? What we can learn from South Africa’s experience

Lack of Supply or Demand? What we can learn from South Africa’s experience

News
The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. December 3, 2021 By Beth Boyer and Andrea Taylor South Africa and a handful of other African nations recently asked vaccine makers to hold off on shipping more COVID-19 vaccines for the time being. Leaders of wealthy countries, accused of hoarding vaccine doses, are using this to make the case that vaccine hesitancy rather than supply is to blame for low vaccination coverage across sub-Saharan Africa. This comes amid the emergence of the Omicron variant, first identified by South Africa’s genome sequencing experts, which has reignited calls to urgently address the inequitable distribution of vaccines. The demand-not-supply framing overlooks the more complicated reality of vaccination campaigns for countries across Africa. In fact, hesitancy is only part of the problem. According to a survey conducted earlier this year by the…
Read More
New Analysis Finds That G7+EU Excess Doses Can Cover 40% Supply Gap In 2021

New Analysis Finds That G7+EU Excess Doses Can Cover 40% Supply Gap In 2021

News
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…
Read More
Scaling Lifesaving Interventions Faster: A Case Study on the Accelerated Uptake of NOPV2, the First Vaccine to Receive WHO Emergency Use Listing

Scaling Lifesaving Interventions Faster: A Case Study on the Accelerated Uptake of NOPV2, the First Vaccine to Receive WHO Emergency Use Listing

News
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…
Read More
Booster Shots Ahead of the Holidays

Booster Shots Ahead of the Holidays

News
The Launch and Scale Speedometer blog series. October 29, 2021 By Blen Biru Confirmed Vaccine Purchases Confirmed Donations (by recipient, includes pledges) High income countries 7 B 7 M Upper  middle income countries 2.6 B 75 M Lower middle income countries 2.6 B 84.7 M Low income countries 238 M 66 M COVAX 2.5 B 945 M WORLDWIDE TOTALS 15 B 1.2 B INSIGHTS Most high income and upper middle-income countries have fully vaccinated more than half of their population. Portugal ranks first having covered 85% of its population followed by UAE (83%) and Spain (78%). The US ranks 18th having 55% of its population fully vaccinated. In contrast, resource limited countries such as Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Tanzania have only vaccinated less than 5% of their population. In light of the new COVID-19 variants, countries such…
Read More
What the Latest Global COVID-19 Summit Achieved (and missed)

What the Latest Global COVID-19 Summit Achieved (and missed)

News
WEEKLY COVID VACCINE RESEARCH UPDATE Friday, September 24, 2021 Confirmed Vaccine Purchases Confirmed Donations (by recipient, includes pledges) High income countries 6.97 B 7 M Upper  middle income countries 2.58 B 62.5 M Lower middle income countries 2.7 B 78 M Low income countries 238 M 65.1 M COVAX 2.5 B 740 M WORLDWIDE TOTALS 15 B 953 M INSIGHTS What the latest Global COVID-19 Summit achieved (and missed) Author: Andrea Taylor As we and a coalition of over 100 leaders and organizations called for, President Biden hosted a Global COVID-19 Summit on Wednesday. With participation of world leaders mostly virtually, the Summit covered familiar ground as well as some new territory. In order to make progress, we need clear goals, an action plan, and an accountability mechanism. Using this framework, we’ve reviewed the…
Read More
Will Cuba’s Home-Grown Vaccine Strategy Pay Off?

Will Cuba’s Home-Grown Vaccine Strategy Pay Off?

News
WEEKLY COVID VACCINE RESEARCH UPDATE Saturday, September 11, 2021 Confirmed Vaccine Purchases Confirmed Donations (by recipient, includes pledges) High income countries 6.9 B 6.5 B Upper  middle income countries 2.5 B 54 M Lower middle income countries 2.6 B 64 M Low income countries 238 M 63 M COVAX 2.5 B 741 M WORLDWIDE TOTALS 14.8 B 927 M INSIGHTS Will Cuba’s home-grown vaccine strategy pay off? Author: Blen Biru Cuba has become the leader of COVID-19 vaccine development in Latin America – producing a total of five vaccine candidates so far, four of which are awaiting submission to WHO’s Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EUL). All of the vaccines have names that express Cubans’ pride in developing successful home-grown vaccines as a small nation: Abdala (named after a patriotic poem), Soberana 1…
Read More
We Need A Better Plan

We Need A Better Plan

News
WEEKLY COVID VACCINE RESEARCH UPDATE Friday, August 27, 2021 Confirmed Vaccine Purchases Confirmed Donations (by recipient, includes pledges) High income countries 6,867,677,500 6,451,921 Upper  middle income countries 2,469,340,075 46,273,774 Lower middle income countries 3,185,578,000 67,538,436 Low income countries 288,200,00 60,778,812 COVAX 2,534,000,000 730,400,000 WORLDWIDE TOTALS 15,344,795,575 911,442,943 INSIGHTS We need a better plan. Author: Andrea Taylor The past 18 months have shown us what happens when we rely on fragmented responses to a pandemic – the result is an uncoordinated patchwork of insufficient approaches and the continued spread of an ever-mutating virus. It sounds obvious but still needs to be said: pandemics are global and our response must be as well. Together with colleagues at the COVID Collaborative, the Pandemic Action Network, the Center for Global Development, and many others, we…
Read More
Are Third Shots vs. First Shots A “False Choice?” Then the US and Other High-Income Countries Should Prove It

Are Third Shots vs. First Shots A “False Choice?” Then the US and Other High-Income Countries Should Prove It

News
WEEKLY COVID VACCINE RESEARCH UPDATE Friday, August 20, 2021 High-income country confirmed dose total: 6.8 billion Upper-middle-income country total: 2.5 billion Lower-middle-income country total: 3.2 billion Low-income country total: 288 million COVAX total: 3.3 billion Total worldwide confirmed purchases of Covid-19 vaccines: 15 billion doses INSIGHTS Are third shots vs first shots a “false choice?” Then the US and other high-income countries should prove it. Author: Andrea Taylor The US has continued to advance plans for boosters since we wrote about the issue earlier this month, with an announcement that a third dose will be offered to all residents (not just the highly vulnerable), eight months after the second dose. Israel has already begun its booster campaign, while Germany, France, and the UK are expected to begin boosters for the elderly and immunocompromised next month. Data from…
Read More