This briefing focuses on the progress towards and prospects for a coronavirus vaccine, exploring the scientific considerations, the production, distribution and allocation challenges as well as the access politics.
As countries grapple with how best to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and the reverberations it is sending through their societies and economies, scientific understanding of how the virus is behaving, and what measures might best combat it, continues to advance.
This is the eighth in a weekly series of interactive webinars on the coronavirus with Professor David Heymann and special guest, Professor David Salisbury, helping us to understand the facts and make sense of the latest developments in the global crisis.
With 80 candidate vaccines reported to be in development, how will scientists and governments select the 'right' one? What should be the role of global leadership and international coordination in the development and distribution of a new vaccine? And can equitable access be ensured across the globe?
Professor Heymann is a world-leading authority on infectious disease outbreaks. He led the World Health Organization’s response to SARS and has been advising the organization on its response to the coronavirus.
Professor Salisbury was director of immunization at the UK Department of Health from 2007 to 2013. He was responsible for the national immunization programme and led the introduction of many new vaccines.
He previously chaired the WHO’s Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization and served as co-chair of the Pandemic Influenza group of the G7 Global Health Security Initiative.
