14Jul 2022 by Melissa Slogan
Toward More Nimble, Equitable Vaccination and Pandemic Response

Toward More Nimble, Equitable Vaccination and Pandemic Response

News
The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. July 14, 2022 By Nellie Bristol and Krishna Udayakumar The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s call to include an omicron component in vaccines that will be used for boosters in the U.S. beginning in fall 2022 could once again exacerbate global vaccine inequities, providing some high-income countries new vaccine options that likely won’t reach other parts of the world for months or years. The move comes even as the most recent waves of omicron, BA.4/5, which now dominate in the U.S., are proving even more contagious, more adept at evading both natural and vaccine-induced immunity, and producing disease that is not responding as well to some therapies, especially monoclonal antibodies. There also is some evidence that these variants could invade lung tissue in a way not seen in other omicron variants. All…
Read More
30Jun 2022 by kmitch@duke.edu
New report released by Duke GHIC and Global Health Technologies Coalition examines the WHO Prequalification Program

New report released by Duke GHIC and Global Health Technologies Coalition examines the WHO Prequalification Program

News
The report, Navigating complexity to improve global access: Supporting a more efficient and effective World Health Organization Prequalification Program, examines successes and pain points of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Prequalification (PQ) Program and offers actionable recommendations to strengthen its role in facilitating global access to medical products. The report—which was informed by a quantitative analysis of the timelines of more than two dozen prequalified products and qualitative interviews with WHO staff, product developers, and regulatory experts—documents how the PQ program has played a vital role in expediting access to safe, effective, and quality-assured health products in low- and middle-income countries and accelerating downstream approvals by their national regulatory authorities. However, it also reveals key operational challenges including a lack of public reporting on expected review timelines for all product…
Read More
23Jun 2022 by Melissa Slogan
Building Public-Private Preparedness Strategies in Peru

Building Public-Private Preparedness Strategies in Peru

News
The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. June 23, 2022 By Nellie Bristol and Ernesto Ortiz [caption id="attachment_2889" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Image by Legado via www.flickr.com[/caption] As the COVID-19 pandemic ramped up in early 2020, Peru already was on its way to having one of the highest recorded death rates per capita of any country in the world. Its health facilities were overrun, health workers were overtaxed, or worse, infected themselves, and supplies ranging from personal protective equipment to diagnostic tests were in desperately short supply. Isolated communities were particularly in dire straits as national lock downs prevented critical supplies from reaching remote areas. Contributing to Peru’s poor performance: the informal status of more than three quarters of the labor pool making lockdown order adherence nearly impossible, poorly functioning health facilities,…
Read More
16Jun 2022 by Melissa Slogan
IGAD Regional Health Data Sharing and Protection Policy Framework

IGAD Regional Health Data Sharing and Protection Policy Framework

Our Reports
Innovations in Healthcare (IiH) provided impact and evaluation support to the multistakeholder Blueprint for Innovative Healthcare Access program operating in Meru County, Kenya. IiH guided the development of evaluation plans, delivered workshops on key topics to strengthen evaluation capacity, and routinely validated and analyzed data from all program partners to drive greater outcomes and data-oriented decision making.The IGAD Regional Health Data Sharing and Protection Policy framework seeks to provide clear guidance for the member states on health data sharing via a set of universal principles that ensure that health data is adequately protected. This framework emphasizes the rights of patients by outlining the rights of data subjects and details the roles and responsibilities of various actors and stakeholders. Ultimately, it aims to facilitate proper data sharing practices that encourage ethical…
Read More
02Jun 2022 by Melissa Slogan
Slow Progress in Updating International Health Regulations at 75th World Health Assembly

Slow Progress in Updating International Health Regulations at 75th World Health Assembly

News
The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. June 2, 2022 By Nellie Bristol In the third year of a global pandemic that has caused millions of deaths and trillions of dollars in lost economic activity, the potential benefits of coordinated multi-lateral approaches, as well as the slow pace and frustrations of reaching consensus across diverse countries, was on full display at the World Health Assembly (WHA) last week. Health leaders from around the world wrestled with relatively incremental changes to health security mechanisms, agreeing only to set in motion a two-year process for modernizing the International Health Regulations (IHR). Perceived failures in response to COVID-19 and other health emergencies, have highlighted the need for faster, more effective communications between outbreak-affected countries and the World Health Organization and for mechanisms to…
Read More
18May 2022 by Melissa Slogan
Leaders Pledge Surge of Resources for COVID, Preparedness

Leaders Pledge Surge of Resources for COVID, Preparedness

News
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…
Read More
21Apr 2022 by Melissa Slogan
An Uncertain Outlook for the Global COVID-19 Response

An Uncertain Outlook for the Global COVID-19 Response

News
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…
Read More
30Mar 2022 by Melissa Slogan
Shifting Strategies to End the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Aftermath of Omicron

Shifting Strategies to End the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Aftermath of Omicron

News
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…
Read More
15Mar 2022 by Melissa Slogan
Building vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa: what progress has been made and is it enough?

Building vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa: what progress has been made and is it enough?

News
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.…
Read More
08Feb 2022 by Melissa Slogan
Pills to Treat COVID-19 are Here…Sort Of

Pills to Treat COVID-19 are Here…Sort Of

News
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…
Read More