The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has inaugurated a five-year strategy aimed at strengthening global preparedness against epidemic and pandemic threats.
The coalition also called for an additional 2.5 billion dollars to reinforce the world’s disease defences.
This is contained in a statement by the Senior Communications and Advocacy Manager, CEPI, Ms Jodie Rogers, made available to the reporters.
The strategy, tagged CEPI 3.0, is due to begin in 2027 and requires a total of 3.6 billion dollars for full implementation.
With 1.1 billion dollars already secured and committed, the organisation is seeking further investments from governments, philanthropies, and development partners.
According to Rogers, the new plan comes amid increasingly frequent and disruptive outbreaks of deadly diseases such as Nipah, Ebola, Chikungunya, and Marburg, which continue to threathealth security.
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She also said that research indicated that the risk of another pandemic on a scale similar to COVID-19 remained significant.
“”At the same time, trillions of dollars in economic damage might have been averted,” she said.
The CEPI senior communications and advocacy manager further said that at the centre of CEPI 3.0 was the organisation’s 100 Days Mission; a goal to develop safe, effective and accessible vaccines against a virus with pandemic potential within 100 days of its identification.
“If fully funded, the strategy would deliver three interconnected priorities to enable faster and fairer outbreak response globally.
“This is while generating scientific tools and knowledge across viral families identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as capable of causing a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) or a pandemic,” she said.
“Secondly, CEPI will advance rapid-response vaccine platform technologies and embed them within regional manufacturing networks.
“CEPI will work closely with regulators to ensure access to relevant performance data, strengthening regulatory preparedness and enabling faster assessment of candidate vaccines during emergencies.
“This approach is expected to facilitate rapid vaccine development, quicker manufacturing scale-up, accelerated regulatory review, and improved equity from the outset of outbreaks.
“CEPI will further support and rigorously test global scientific and manufacturing networks that can be rapidly activated to execute the 100 Days Mission, from early research and development to large-scale production,”
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