The COVID GAP Blog

COVID-19 Anguish Channeled into Survivor Support, Push for Better Pandemic Policies

March 30, 2023: While many might want to move on from COVID-19, families suffering through lost loved ones and lingering disability will long bear the scars. Their stories provide the lived experience and passion necessary to ensure survivors receive the financial and emotional support they need. They also provide real life reminders to lawmakers of the need to urgently enact pandemic preparedness policies that will protect constituents from similar suffering in the future.

UN High Level Pandemic Meeting Should Be Only the Beginning

March 9, 2023: The fear and disruption brought on by COVID-19 are already fading into memory. But pandemic risks remain and are in fact increasing. While the HLM will refocus attention on the actions needed to prepare, longer term solutions are required to ensure continued progress. For the HLM to have concrete, lasting impact, participants should commit to a high-level standing body like the Global Health Threats Council that will marshal the attention and resources needed to protect the world from the threats to come.

African Leaders Commit to Tackling Pandemic Fueled Routine Immunization Deficits

February 23, 2023: In the face of falling routine immunization rates and recent spikes in some vaccine preventable diseases, African leaders pledged this week to “reignite the political will” to prioritize universal access to immunization through a declaration endorsed by African Union (AU) Heads of State and Government February 19.

Fatal Lack of Oxygen During Pandemic Peaks Spurs Action to End Enduring Shortages

February 10, 2023: Access to medical oxygen literally has been a matter of life and death during COVID-19 peaks and shortages have had devastating effects in many countries around the world. Yet despite its life saving potential, the oxygen production and supply chain has long been inadequate, leaving many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in dire circumstances.

Communicators Require New Approaches to Build Trust in Science and Public Health

January 25, 2023: Trust in science and public health institutions is considered one of the key pillars of health emergency preparedness. Yet many metrics indicate trust decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of changing circumstances during a fast moving outbreak, ineffective messaging, and a torrent of misinformation and purposeful disinformation promulgated on social media. Advances are being made in some technological approaches to pandemic preparedness, including quicker, more geographically dispersed vaccine manufacturing. Building trust, especially in politically polarized societies, may be an even more daunting task, but equally important to successful outbreak mitigation.

High Level Health Emergency Council Proposed for WHO Executive Board Review

January 12, 2023: As health security improvement efforts continue at all governmental levels, World Health Organization (WHO) is advancing ten proposals aimed at strengthening its role and effectiveness in health emergency preparedness and response. 

Global Health Security Agenda Needs Stronger Core to Increase Effectiveness

December 12, 2022: The Global Health Security Agenda launched in early 2014 as a bold attempt to jump start health emergency capacity building in low- and middle-income countries. But while the GHSA continues to be a primary policy instrument for the US government, a review released this fall by the Global Health Security Agenda Consortium, NTI:bio, and the Pandemic Action Network asserts the organization was nearly invisible in the COVID-19 response, citing a series of structural issues that hindered its effectiveness.

Global Preparedness Requires More Than Just Additional Funding

November 28, 2022: As the specter looms of more and perhaps even more devastating epidemics and pandemics, experts in the field are hopeful that the availability of new resources along with innovative approaches to help countries take advantage of them will edge the world closer to better health emergency preparedness.

Community Health Workers Critical for Pandemic Preparedness and Health Systems Strengthening

November 10, 2022: The COVID-19 pandemic has created an important window of opportunity for health systems reform, including for promoting and expanding sustainable CHW integration through policy change. For this to occur, increased collaboration is needed among advocacy groups, government officials, community members, existing CHWs, and medical professionals to overcome policy barriers to CHW scale-up, both in Peru and other settings with limited health services.

ACT-A Assessments Point the Way to More Effective Pandemic Response

October 27, 2022: While global health experts have long urged heightened attention and funding toward pandemic preparedness, COVID-19 showed the world remained woefully ill equipped. Lacking an established system to ensure medical countermeasures reached everyone everywhere, urgent ad hoc efforts were undertaken, leading to the establishment of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A).

Africa CDC Models Data to Aid Oral Antiviral Roll Out Decisions in Africa

October 13, 2022: The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Health Economics Programme (HEP) is fast tracking research on the cost effectiveness of oral therapeutics to ensure data are available for decision makers as more of the drugs become available across the continent, HEP Acting Head Justice Nonvignon said in an October 7 interview with COVID GAP.

Yearly COVID Boosters for Older Adults May Produce Largest Gains

September 30, 2022: Under COVID-19’s current course, yearly vaccination focused on high risk populations is most likely to prevent the most hospitalizations and deaths and prove more cost effective than aiming for regular full population immunization, Professor Azra Ghani of Imperial College said September 29.

Public-Private Consortium Jump-Starts COVID Treatment Access in Ten Countries

September 15, 2022: Ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia will partner with a new public-private collaboration to scale up COVID-19 test and treat operations for high risk populations, the COVID Treatment Quick Start Consortium announced September 7. Working with an initial donation of 100,000 doses of Paxlovid from Pfizer, the consortium aims to integrate the program into long term systems that will offer a range of antivirals, including generic versions as they become available.

New Duke-Affiliated Center Boosts Preparedness in Outbreak Hot Spots

August 31, 2022: Because of its population density, climate, and increased and more varied human/animal contact, Asia is a hot zone for outbreak risk. The Centre for Outbreak Preparedness (COP) creates a network of researchers and national public health officials, working with partners from the private sector and the World Health Organization, that will establish rapid pathogen identification and diagnostic tools.

WHO and UNICEF Lay Out Considerations for COVID Vaccine Integration

August 18, 2022: The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF are developing a document outlining considerations for incorporating COVID-19 vaccination into national immunization programs and primary care.

AIDS 2022 Highlights COVID's Disruptions, Innovations

August 11, 2022: COVID-19 has disrupted clinical care and supply chains throughout the world, testing the resilience and flexibility of health systems everywhere. Services for those living with HIV/AIDS are no exception.

Africa CDC’s Regional Approach to Improving Biosafety and Biosecurity

August 3, 2022: With its rapidly growing urban population, high burden of infectious disease, and widespread gaps in health care capacities, Africa is particularly vulnerable to potentially devastating epidemics. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has been on the forefront of addressing the issue

Enhanced Preparedness Assessments Require New Capacity Building Approaches

July 21, 2022: COVID-19 created a real-world stress test for pandemic preparedness and response. While there were some successes, many systems showed dangerous faults. The authors of national health emergency capacity assessments have analyzed those failings and incorporated lessons learned into revised tools, creating more comprehensive readiness benchmarks for future pandemics.

Toward More Nimble, Equitable Vaccination and Pandemic Response

July 14, 2022: The world is falling even farther behind in its effort to get in front of this pandemic and bring it fully under control. With a tepid global response losing further momentum, it is time to set clear priorities and goals that reflect today’s reality.

Building Public-Private Preparedness Strategies in Peru

June 23, 2022: 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. 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, and inadequate health sector regulation.

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

June 2, 2022: 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.

Leaders Pledge Surge of Resources for COVID, Preparedness

May 18, 2022: 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.

An Uncertain Outlook for the Global COVID-19 Response

April 21, 2022: 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.

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

March 30, 2022: 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.

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

March 15, 2022: Local manufacturing capacity has been highly correlated to earlier access to life-saving health interventions, as demonstrated with COVID-19 vaccines.

Testing: A Neglected, Critical Component of the COVID-19 Response

January 31, 2022: Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, accurate and timely testing has been critical for diagnosis, disease surveillance, and containment strategies. Diagnostic capacity, however, has been a challenge for countries at all income levels, and has been further stressed by surges driven by new variants. Now, with promising oral therapeutics entering the market, diagnostics are even more crucial as they are integral to the roll-out and effective use of the new antivirals.

2021 COVID-19 Vaccines Wrap Up: The Good, the Bad, and Omicron

January 14, 2022: Another year of the pandemic has come and gone. 2021 kicked off with a glimmer of hope as the first few COVID-19 vaccines reached the market. However, the tremendous undertaking of vaccinating the world got off to a rocky start and much of the world remained unvaccinated throughout the year.

COVID-19 pills are coming. Urgent action is needed to ensure equitable global access.

December 13, 2021: For much of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines have been the primary focus to slow the spread of the virus. However, amid rising infection rates and low global vaccination coverage, effective therapeutics that can prevent severe disease could be a game changer. But only if we learn from the inequitable vaccine rollout and ensure global access from the beginning.

Lack of Supply or Demand? What we can learn from South Africa’s experience

December 3, 2021: Leaders of wealthy countries, accused of hoarding vaccine doses, are using this to make the case that vaccine hesitancy rather than supply is to blame for low vaccination coverage across sub-Saharan Africa.