Global public health security and justice for vaccines and therapeutics in the COVID-19 pandemic

Peter J Hotez¹, Carolina Batista², Yanis Ben Amor³, Onder Ergonul⁴, J Peter Figueroa⁵, Sarah Gilbert⁶, Mayda Gursel⁷, Mazen Hassanain⁸, Gagandeep Kang⁹, David C Kaslow¹⁰, Jerome H Kim¹¹, Bhavna Lall¹², Heidi Larson¹³, Denise Naniche¹⁴, Timothy Sheahan¹⁵, Shmuel Shoham¹⁶, Annelies Wilder-Smith^{13

17

18}, Samba O Sow^{19

20}, Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft²¹, Prashant Yadav^{22

23

24}, Maria Elena Bottazzi¹

Affiliations

¹ Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
² Médecins Sans Frontières, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
³ Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
⁴ Koc University Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Istanbul, Turkey.
⁵ University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Jamaica.
⁶ Nuffield Department of Medicine, Jenner Institute, Oxford University, Oxford, UK.
⁷ Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
⁸ College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁹ Christian Medical College, Vellore, India.
¹⁰ PATH Essential Medicines, PATH, WA, USA.
¹¹ International Vaccine Institute, Seoul, South Korea.
¹² University of Houston College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
¹³ London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
¹⁴ ISGlobal-Barcelona Institute for Global Health-Hospital Clinic-University of Barcelona, Spain.
¹⁵ University of North Carolina, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
¹⁶ Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹⁷ Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Switzerland.
¹⁸ Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
¹⁹ Center for Vaccine Development, Bamako, Mali.
²⁰ University of Maryland, MD, USA.
²¹ Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, Geneva, Switzerland.
²² Center for Global Development, Washington, DC, USA.
²³ Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
²⁴ Affiliate Professor, Technology and Operations Management, INSEAD, France.

PMID: 34368661
PMCID: PMC8330385
DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101053

Review

Global public health security and justice for vaccines and therapeutics in the COVID-19 pandemic

Peter J Hotez et al. EClinicalMedicine. 2021 Sep.

. 2021 Sep:39:101053.

doi: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101053. Epub 2021 Aug 3.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Texas Children's Center for Vaccine Development, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
² Médecins Sans Frontières, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
³ Center for Sustainable Development, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
⁴ Koc University Research Center for Infectious Diseases, Istanbul, Turkey.
⁵ University of the West Indies, Mona, Kingston, Jamaica.
⁶ Nuffield Department of Medicine, Jenner Institute, Oxford University, Oxford, UK.
⁷ Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.
⁸ College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁹ Christian Medical College, Vellore, India.
¹⁰ PATH Essential Medicines, PATH, WA, USA.
¹¹ International Vaccine Institute, Seoul, South Korea.
¹² University of Houston College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA.
¹³ London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK.
¹⁴ ISGlobal-Barcelona Institute for Global Health-Hospital Clinic-University of Barcelona, Spain.
¹⁵ University of North Carolina, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC, USA.
¹⁶ Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.
¹⁷ Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Switzerland.
¹⁸ Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany.
¹⁹ Center for Vaccine Development, Bamako, Mali.
²⁰ University of Maryland, MD, USA.
²¹ Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative, Geneva, Switzerland.
²² Center for Global Development, Washington, DC, USA.
²³ Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
²⁴ Affiliate Professor, Technology and Operations Management, INSEAD, France.

PMID: 34368661
PMCID: PMC8330385
DOI: 10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101053

Abstract

A Lancet Commission for COVID-19 task force is shaping recommendations to achieve vaccine and therapeutics access, justice, and equity. This includes ensuring safety and effectiveness harmonized through robust systems of global pharmacovigilance and surveillance. Global production requires expanding support for development, manufacture, testing, and distribution of vaccines and therapeutics to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Global intellectual property rules must not stand in the way of research, production, technology transfer, or equitable access to essential health tools, and in context of pandemics to achieve increased manufacturing without discouraging innovation. Global governance around product quality requires channelling widely distributed vaccines through WHO prequalification (PQ)/emergency use listing (EUL) mechanisms and greater use of national regulatory authorities. A World Health Assembly (WHA) resolution would facilitate improvements and consistency in quality control and assurances. Global health systems require implementing steps to strengthen national systems for controlling COVID-19 and for influenza vaccinations for adults including pregnant and lactating women. A collaborative research network should strive to establish open access databases for bioinformatic analyses, together with programs directed at human capacity utilization and strengthening. Combating anti-science recognizes the urgency for countermeasures to address a global-wide disinformation movement dominating the internet and infiltrating parliaments and local governments.

Keywords: COVID-19; Health equity; Vaccine distribution; global governance; public health justice; public health security; therapeutics; vaccine access; vaccine development; vaccine technologies.

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Conflict of interest statement

MEB and PJH are developers of a COVID-19 vaccine construct, which was licensed by Baylor College of Medicine to Biological E Ltd., a commercial vaccine manufacturer for scale up, production, testing and licensure. MG participates in one of eight SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development projects supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) since March 2020. SG is cofounder of Vaccitech and has a patent on ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 licensed to AstraZeneca. MH is Founder and Managing Director of SaudiVax. JPF, GK and DCK are members of the WHO SAGE Working Group on COVID-19 vaccines. GK is independent director appointed by the Wellcome Trust, MSD Wellcome Trust Hilleman Laboratories Private Limited and Vice Chair of the Board, Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). DCK reports grants from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and grants from CEPI, JHK reports personal fees from SK biosciences. HL reports grants and honoraria from GlaxoSmithKline for training talks and from Merck as a member of the Merck Vaccine Confidence Advisory Board, grants from J&J outside the submitted work. AWS serves as Consultant to WHO. The views presented here reflect her views and not necessarily those of WHO. TS reports grants from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and Fast Grants and research contracts from GlaxoSmithKline, and ViiV Healthcare. SS reports grants from Ansun BioPharma, Astellas Pharma, Cidara Therapeutics, F2G, Merck, T2 Biosystems, Shire Pharmaceuticals, Shionogi, and Gilead Sciences, outside the submitted work; and personal fees from Amplyx Pharmaceuticals, Acidophil, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Reviral, Intermountain Healthcare, Karyopharm Therapeutics, Immunome, Celltrion, and Adagio outside the submitted work. All other authors declare no conflict of interests. The authors views and opinions in the Commentary do not necessarily represent the views, decisions, or policies of the institutions, universities, or health systems with which they are affiliated.

Figures

**Fig. 1**
(A) Share of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine, July 10, 2021. Share of the total population that received at least one vaccine dose. This may not equal the share that are fully vaccinated if the vaccine requires two doses. (B) Share of the population fully vaccinated against COVID-19, July 10, 2021. Share of the total population that have received all doses prescribed by the vaccination protocol. This data is only available for countries which report the breakdown of doses administered by first and second doses. From Our World In Data data explorer: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

1. Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. COVID-19 projections. 2021.https://covid19.healthdata.org/global?view=cumulative-deaths&tab=trend. (accessed May 27, 2021)
1. Charlier P., Varison L. Vol. 396. Lancet; London, England: 2020. pp. 1069–1070. (Is COVID-19 being used as a weapon against indigenous peoples in Brazil?). - PMC - PubMed
1. Bartsch S.M., O'Shea K.J., Ferguson M.C. Vaccine Efficacy Needed for a COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine to Prevent or Stop an Epidemic as the Sole Intervention. Am J Prev Med. 2020;59:493–503. - PMC - PubMed
1. Moghadas S.M., Vilches T.N., Zhang K. medRxiv Preprint Server for Health Sciences; 2020. The impact of vaccination on COVID-19 outbreaks in the United States. published online Nov. - DOI
1. Karas H. The impact of COVID-19 on global extreme poverty. Brookings. 2021 https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/10/21/the-impact-... (accessed May 27, 2021)

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Global public health security and justice for vaccines and therapeutics in the COVID-19 pandemic

Affiliations

Global public health security and justice for vaccines and therapeutics in the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

Figures

References

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