COVID-19 vaccine delivery: an opportunity to set up systems for the future

Rebecca Weintraub,Dan Storisteanu,Natalie Garcon,Stanley Plotkin,Eliah Aronoff-Spencer,David Bell,Margaret Liu,Toby Norman,Jerome Kim

doi:10.12688/gatesopenres.13210.2

Abstract

The race to develop safe and effective SARS-COV-2 vaccines has moved with unprecedented speed. There are now multiple vaccines that have received emergency use authorization from the United States Food and Drug Administration and a host of candidates positioned for approval worldwide. Attention has now turned to allocation, distribution and verification of these vaccines, yet this focus exposes that the underlying infrastructure for global delivery and monitoring is threadbare and unevenly distributed. This presents both a barrier and an opportunity to deploy sustainable infrastructure. Major global stakeholders must convene quickly, collaborate, and collectively invest in global standards, legal models, common vocabularies and interoperable biometric-supported digital health technologies. As the COVID-19 vaccine effort scales, governments, private sector, and NGOs have the chance to place lasting resources needed for equitable and effective delivery that can pay dividends into the future.

Highlights

The race to develop safe and effective SARS-COV-2 vaccines has moved with unprecedented speed
We have taken heart from our reviewers comments that there is a global mismatch between vaccine systems meant to serve the very young while COVID-19 vaccines focus on older populations
Any further responses from the reviewers can be found at the end of the article With the launch of effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, policymakers, academics, and scientists around the globe are turning their attention to yet another fundamental challenge - how will governments monitor and verify vaccine delivery

Summary

Introduction

The race to develop safe and effective SARS-COV-2 vaccines has moved with unprecedented speed. We have taken heart from our reviewers comments that there is a global mismatch between vaccine systems meant to serve the very young while COVID-19 vaccines focus on older populations. Any further responses from the reviewers can be found at the end of the article With the launch of effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, policymakers, academics, and scientists around the globe are turning their attention to yet another fundamental challenge - how will governments monitor and verify vaccine delivery.

Results

Conclusion