Expert Meeting co-sponsored by:  

• National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Nigeria
• Medicine Quality Research Group, IDDO & MORU, University of Oxford
• Supply & Market Dynamics and Medicine Quality Working Group of the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition
• mPedigree
• Global Health Strategy Group for Digital Health and AI for Health

Purpose of the meeting: 

COVID-19 vaccines, combined with other public health interventions, are vital to ending the pandemic. Their storage and distribution is a major logistical challenge. Additional, but so far neglected, issues are substandard and falsified (SF) and diverted COVID-19 vaccines, fuelled especially when access to vaccines is heavily constrained. The problem stems first and foremost from poor traceability, which is exacerbated by weak infrastructure and inadequate tracking across borders. To complicate future challenges, there will be markets in richer parts of the world for booster vaccines and vaccines reconfigured for new variants absorbing available supply, proliferation of different types of vaccines and of ‘new’ and ‘superseded’ generations of vaccines, spare-doses redistribution/reallocation, and many competing products. When vulnerable communities think that they are protected when they are not, this risks impairing the effectiveness of vaccination programs. Falsified, degraded, and diverted vaccines also risk speeding the emergence and spread of viral variants, undermining vaccines, and prolonging the pandemic. Efforts to set up vaccine manufacturing facilities in low-resource settings are undermined if vaccine supply chains and vaccine reputation cannot be protected.

Digital, AI, GIS and similar tools are important parts of a package of joined-up interventions for tracking COVID-19 vaccines and securing quality all along the supply chain, and for more quickly identifying and managing the risks of SF and diverted COVID-19 vaccines. Success depends on creating a supportive ecosystem of interested parties with shared goals, aligning manufacturers, private digital/AI/GIS innovators, regulators, and health-service providers, and efficiently deploying already available technology that is adapted for the needs of users and workable in even the toughest of low-resource settings. If the world is to finally exit from the pandemic, like the successful development of the vaccines themselves, we need a sense of urgency and the same can-do attitude and resources to concatenate the timeline for putting together a joined-up set of inventions, from ten years to less than a year.

Meeting Objectives  

• Improve traceability of COVID-19 vaccines all along the supply chain so as to more quickly identify substandard and falsified (SF) and diverted COVID-19 vaccines and to better manage ‘new’ and ‘superseded’ generations of vaccines and spare-doses redistribution;
• Align manufacturers, private digital/AI/GIS innovators, regulators, and health-service providers around common goals;
• Efficiently deploy available technology by adapting it to the needs of users in the toughest of low-resource settings;
• Prevent falsified, degraded, and diverted vaccines from speeding the emergence and spread of viral variants;
• Boost efforts to set up vaccine manufacturing capacity, in particular in Africa, by strengthening vaccine supply chains, protecting vaccine reputation, and de-risking such investments;
• Formulate the ‘Abuja Principles’ for deploying digital/AI/GIS tools to ensure access to quality COVID-19 vaccines for all, in all places, at all times.

Speakers: 

Short presentations/talks will be given by some of those joining the meeting, with a selection drawn from the following: the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, Nigeria (NAFDAC); Medicine Quality Research Group, IDDO & MORU, University of Oxford; mPedigree, Villgro Africa; Africa Union/Africa CDC ‘Trusted vaccines’; UNICEF; Oxford Vaccine Group; COVAX; US CDC; WHO; CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi; Lancet-Financial Times commission on Governing Health Futures 2030; Centrale Humanitaire Médico-Pharmaceutique, Kenya; Zenysis Technologies; members of the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition TBC; others TBC.

Read the concept note