Calls for greater goodEnvironmental activists holding placards next to Japanese anime characters during a protest organised in front of the Japanese embassy to call on Japan, host country of the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Hiroshima, to accelerate the transition to renewable energy in Pasay City in suburban Manila. — AFP
The stepping up of vaccine production in Singapore and other Asean countries can allow the region to play a key role in fighting the next pandemic, said the chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), a foundation that funds vaccine development.
This includes allowing vaccines for new diseases to be distributed quickly and fairly when the next pandemic hits, said Dr Richard Hatchett.
He noted that during the Covid-19 pandemic, vaccine inequity – where wealthier nations had greater access to vaccines than poorer nations – was due in part to vaccine production being centred in four regions: the United States, Europe, China and India.
Given the cross-border nature of diseases, regional collaborations are likely to be of greater importance than national strategies in fighting outbreaks, he added.
Based in Oslo, London and Washington, Cepi is a public-private alliance whose goal is to fight epidemics by speeding up the development of vaccines. It aims to raise US$3.5bil (RM15.7bil) for a five-year programme to develop the capability of creating a vaccine against a new virus within 100 days.
In 2022, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung announced that Singapore would be contributing US$15mil (RM67.4mil) over five years to Cepi to assist these efforts.
Dr Hatchett spoke to The Straits Times during a recent visit to Singapore, where he delivered the Sir Alasdair Breckenridge Lecture.
His comments come as vaccine production capacity is being ramped up in South-East Asia.
In 2021, Thailand – which has been active in vaccine research and development for several decades – began producing AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine and, in October 2022, Indonesia launched IndoVac, its locally produced Covid-19 vaccine.
In December 2022, it was reported that over the past two years, five pharmaceutical companies have committed to set up vaccine plants in Singapore.
Dr Hatchett said countries need to avoid “cycles of panic and neglect” where efforts and investments increase when new viruses emerge, and then fade away as the diseases are no longer deemed serious.
To fight future pandemics, countries need to think of infectious diseases as a category of threat, rather than treat each disease as a threat on its own, he said.
Other countries would do well to emulate Singapore’s pandemic preparedness efforts, he said, pointing to the Republic’s investments in tackling future pandemics through efforts such as the Programme for Research in Epidemic Preparedness and Response (Prepare).
Launched in November 2022, Prepare is a national research and development effort that aims to build up Singapore’s preparedness for future pandemics. The programme will receive US$100mil (RM449mil) in funding over five years.
Dr Hatchett also praised studies conducted by researchers here. He cited the example of the work of Prepare executive director Wang Linfa. The professor in the emerging diseases programme at Duke-NUS Medical School led a team that helped identify the Langya virus, which was detected in late 2018 and formally identified by scientists in 2022.
First discovered in China, the virus is believed to have jumped from shrews to humans, causing fever and severe pneumonia in some cases, though Professor Wang later said there was “no potential of a pandemic” from the virus.
The disruption to ecosystems caused by climate change is likely to result in larger outbreaks of disease in the years to come, said Dr Hatchett.
The mission to develop vaccines within 100 days of a new virus being identified – through tools such as a library of vaccine candidates that can be adapted to tackle different pathogens – is not unrealistic, he said. He noted that the first Covid-19 vaccines were developed in less than a year after the coronavirus first emerged.
Dr Hatchett compared the advancement of vaccine development, which used to take several years, to the evolution of pitstops at Formula One races, which used to take up to a minute and now takes no more than three seconds without compromising on safety.
“I think if we can deliver vaccines within 100 days, we actually get within striking distance of being able to prevent pandemics altogether,” he said. — The Straits Times/ANN
