CEPI seeks $2.5bn to prevent future pandemic devastation

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has inaugurated a five-year strategy aimed at strengthening global preparedness against epidemic and pandemic threats.

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The coalition, in a statement issued by its Senior Communications and Advocacy Manager, Jodie Rogers, also called for an additional $2.5 billion to reinforce the world’s disease defences.

The strategy, tagged CEPI 3.0, is due to begin in 2027 and requires a total of $3.6 billion for full implementation.

With $1.1 billion already secured and committed, the organisation is seeking further investments from governments, philanthropies and development partners.

According to Ms Rogers, the new plan comes amid increasingly frequent and disruptive outbreaks of deadly diseases such as Nipah, Ebola, Chikungunya and Marburg, which continue to threaten global health security.
She noted that research indicated that the risk of another pandemic on a scale similar to COVID-19 remained significant.

She said global losses from future pandemics were estimated to exceed $700 billion annually.

She added that modelling studies further suggested that if safe and effective vaccines had been available within 100 days of COVID-19 being identified, more than eight million lives could have been saved.

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“At the same time, trillions of dollars in economic damage might have been averted,” she said.

The CEPI senior communications and advocacy manager further said that at the centre of CEPI 3.0 was the organisation’s 100 Days Mission; a goal to develop safe, effective and accessible vaccines against a virus with pandemic potential within 100 days of its identification.

She said if fully funded, the strategy would deliver three interconnected priorities to enable faster and fairer outbreak response globally.

“First, the organisation will develop vaccines targeting both known and emerging epidemic threats,” she said.
“It will also advance response-ready vaccines for high-risk pathogens such as Lassa fever, Nipah virus and Rift Valley fever.

“This is while generating scientific tools and knowledge across viral families identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as capable of causing a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) or a pandemic.”

Ms Roger explained that the prototype-pathogen research approach was designed to significantly accelerate vaccine development when new viruses emerge.

She said CEPI will advance rapid-response vaccine platform technologies and embed them within regional manufacturing networks.

“CEPI will work closely with regulators to ensure access to relevant performance data, strengthening regulatory preparedness and enabling faster assessment of candidate vaccines during emergencies,” she said.

“This approach is expected to facilitate rapid vaccine development, quicker manufacturing scale-up, accelerated regulatory review and improved equity from the outset of outbreaks.

“CEPI will further support and rigorously test global scientific and manufacturing networks that can be rapidly activated to execute the 100 Days Mission, from early research and development to large-scale production,” she added.
Ms Roger explained that this aimed to secure access to one to two billion doses of regional manufacturing capacity to enable fast and equitable outbreak response.

She quoted the CEPI’s Chief Executive Officer, Richard Hatchett, saying that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the high cost of global unpreparedness.

Also commenting on the development, the Director-General of Africa CDC, Jean Kaseya, who described CEPI as a “global R&D champion” said its 100 Days Mission would be transformative for Africa.

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“Our partnership with CEPI helps Africa to strengthen our surveillance capacity so we can detect outbreaks early and put in place the infrastructure to develop and manufacture safe and effective vaccines that make Africa and the world safer,” Mr Kaseya said.

CEPI 3.0 marked the next phase of the organisation’s mission to accelerate the development of vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats so they are accessible to all people in need.

In less than a decade, CEPI has supported more than 50 vaccine candidates and invested in 25 platform technologies.

(NAN)