ABSTRACT
From the Executive Summary: The global effort to control the COVID-19 [coronavirus disease 2019] pandemic has seen an exceptional allocation of public and philanthropic funds to advance the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines as quickly as possible. While critical, even these significant commitments represent only a 'down payment' on a price tag that could eventually exceed $50 billion just to scale the production of vaccines to control this global pandemic--amounts that cannot be raised through traditional donor and philanthropic commitments. High-income countries (HICs) can afford to compete for products, and if their taxpayers are willing to contribute, traditional donor funding approaches can help low-income countries (LICs) through mechanisms such as the GAVI [Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance]-proposed Advance Market Commitment (AMC). However, billions of poor people who live in middle-income countries (MICs) ineligible for donor funding are at risk of being left out. Any exclusion will undermine the effort to control the virus. Further, MICs are key actors in the global supply and production chain, and we will require an unprecedented level of collaboration between governments and with industry to develop and rapidly manufacture global supplies of a vaccine. No country has all the science, equipment, and capacity on its own soil to research, develop, manufacture, and supply a vaccine to all its citizens, let alone the whole world.COVID-19 (Disease);Vaccines;International cooperation