CEPI

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)

Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is an innovative partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil organisations, launched at Davos in 2017, to develop vaccines to stop future epidemics. CEPI has moved with great urgency and in coordination with WHO in response to the emergence of COVID-19. CEPI has initiated ten partnerships to develop vaccines against the novel coronavirus. The programmes are leveraging rapid response platforms already supported by CEPI as well as new partnerships.

Background

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched at Davos 2017 as the result of a consensus that a coordinated, international, and intergovernmental plan was needed to develop and deploy new vaccines to prevent future epidemics.

They are an innovative global partnership between public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations working to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enable equitable access to these vaccines for affected populations during outbreaks.

Close collaboration with global partners are crucial to ensure the success of their work. Therefore, they will support coordinating activities to improve their collective response to epidemics, strengthening capacity in countries at risk, and advancing the regulatory science that governs product development.

Mission

Their mission is to accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enable equitable access to these vaccines for people during outbreaks.^[1]

Involvement in COVAX

COVAX is one of three pillars of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which was launched in April 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Commission and France in response to this pandemic. Bringing together governments, global health organisations, manufacturers, scientists, private sector, civil society and philanthropy, with the aim of providing innovative and equitable access to COVID-19 diagnostics, treatments and vaccines. The COVAX pillar is focussed on the latter. It is the only truly global solution to this pandemic because it is the only effort to ensure that people in all corners of the world will get access to COVID-19 vaccines once they are available, regardless of their wealth.

COVAX, the vaccines pillar of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, is co-led by CEPI, Gavi and World Health Organisation (WHO)]] – working in partnership with developed and developing country vaccine manufacturers, UNICEF, the World Bank, and others. It is the only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries.

Work Before Covid-19

Before the emergence of COVID-19, CEPI’s priority diseases included Ebola virus, Lassa virus, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, Nipah virus, Rift Valley Fever and Chikungunya virus. CEPI also invested in platform technologies that can be used for rapid vaccine and immunoprophylactic development against unknown pathogens (Disease X).^[2]

New Vaccines for a safer world

As the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic shows, in a world characterised by increasing population density, human mobility, and ecological change, emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) pose a real and growing threat to global health security.

Epidemic diseases affect us all. They do not respect borders.

The costs of EIDs are vast, in both human and economic terms. As well as the devastating death toll and disruption to societies, COVID-19 could cost the global economy $4.1 trillion, or almost 5% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Even small epidemics can cause tremendous economic disruption.

Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools in the fight to outsmart epidemics. The development of vaccines can help save lives, protect societies and restabilise economies.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations’ (CEPI’s) mission is to stimulate and accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enable access to these vaccines for people during outbreaks.

A global coalition

Their headquarters are in Oslo, Norway, and they have offices in London, UK, and Washington DC, USA. They also work closely with public-sector, private-sector, and civil-society partners around the world.