Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 May 4;30(5):1801-1809.
doi: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2022.02.022. Epub 2022 Feb 23.

Global challenges in preparedness and response to epidemic infectious diseases

Piero Olliaro  1 , Els Torreele  2
Affiliations
Review

Global challenges in preparedness and response to epidemic infectious diseases

Piero Olliaro et al. Mol Ther. .

Abstract

Lessons drawn from successes and failures with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and Ebola virus disease (EVD) should help shaping a robust health innovation system for infectious disease epidemics. Epidemic response research and development (R&D) can be mobilized quickly for public health priorities and yield medicinal products within months. However, to resolve epidemics, technological advances must be equitably accessible and deployed, and these examples expose the limitations of a supply-driven, fragmented R&D ecosystem relying primarily on the private sector to deliver health products. Efficient epidemic response requires a coordinated public health-focused, end-to-end R&D ecosystem for the development, registration, availability, and use of pharmaceutical products. Because pivotal clinical trials can only be conducted during outbreaks, significant preparation must be done beforehand: strengthening clinical research capacity and developing pre-positioned trial protocols and clinical characterization protocols, as well as conducting discovery and pre-clinical research, manufacturing, and early clinical testing of candidate products. This will allow for speedy execution of clinical research early into an outbreak and delivering products within a short time. Effective interventions should be adopted and deployed ensuring equitable access during the ongoing outbreak. Measures to make products available where and when needed must be integrated throughout the R&D value chain.

Keywords: COVID-19; Ebola virus disease; health technology; infectious disease epidemic; innovation; medicinal products; preparedness; response.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interest Both authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

None
Graphical abstract
Figure 1
Figure 1
Medicinal product value chain from discovery to availability and use for health impact, providing examples of inefficiencies of the current competitive, supply-driven, fragmented R&D ecosystem specifically for epidemic preparedness and response
Figure 2
Figure 2
Building a global research and response architecture for infectious disease epidemics
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. US Department of Health and Human Services . 3rd edition. 2006. Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice.https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/SS1978.pdf
    1. González-Muniesa P., Mártinez-González M.A., Hu F., Deprés J.P., Matsuzawa Y., Loos R.J.F., Moreno L.A., Bray G.A., Martinez J.A. Obesity. Nat. Rev. Dis. Primers. 2017;3:17034. - PubMed
    1. Skolnick P. The opioid epidemic: crisis and solutions. Annu. Rev. Pharmacol. Toxicol. 2018;58:143–159. - PubMed
    1. Heymann D.L., Chen L., Takemi K., Fidler D.P., Tappero J.W., Thomas M.J., Kenyon T.A., Frieden T.R., Yach D., Nishtar S., et al. Global health security: the wider lessons from the west African Ebola virus disease epidemic. Lancet. 2015;385:1884–1901. - PMC - PubMed
    1. United Nations . 2015. 17 Sustainable Development Goals.https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Publication types