WHO Working Group – Vaccine R&D for COVID-19 Vaccines

Overview

World experts on COVID-19 met at the World Health Organization’s Geneva headquarters from 11 to 12 February 2020 to assess the current level of knowledge about the new virus, agree on critical research questions that need to be answered urgently and ways to work together to accelerate and fund priority research that can contribute to curtail this outbreak and prepare for future outbreaks.

The objectives of this group are to discuss:

• Approaches to demonstrate the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines o Importance of Efficacy/Safety Trials
  • Role of human challenge studies in accelerating vaccine development
  • Importance of Efficacy/Safety Trials
  • Role of human challenge studies in accelerating vaccine development
  • Potential alternatives to efficacy trials
  • Importance of post-licensure studies and role of complementary observational data
  • How can WHO facilitate this discussion?
• General Considerations for Resource utilization in vaccine development
  • Are there scarcities (now or impending) of resources needed for vaccine development?
    e.g., access to preclinical testing models, access to clinical trial sites for phase I/II or phase II/III, others?
  • Does the WHO have a role to play in allocation of these resources?
    • If so, how should WHO develop criteria to prioritize access to such resources?
• General Considerations for Vaccine Deployment
  • General considerations for rapid large-scale manufacturing of vaccines and vaccine-related products.
  • General considerations to ensure sufficient and equitable access of vaccine globally.
  • How can WHO facilitate goal of equitable access to adequate supply of vaccine?