The COVID Moonshot, a non-profit, open-science consortium of scientists from around the world dedicated to the discovery of globally affordable and easily-manufactured antiviral drugs against COVID-19 and future viral pandemics.

This third webinar in a series on vaccines by the coalition’s Social Science Working Group brought together experts to discuss issues related to research on vaccines and deployment during COVID-19 pandemic and past epidemics and share lessons learned for building trust to improve COVID-19 vaccination uptake.

Coalition Ethics Working Group members Ms Katharine Wright and Dr Leonardo de Castro recently participated in the 14th Annual Philippines Health Research Week under the theme ‘Health R&D in the New Normal: Moving Towards Universal Health Care’. A key outcome of the meeting was the adoption of the Ethical Compass as a guide for Research Ethics Committee processes in the Philippines.

The Virology, Immunology and Diagnostics Working Group organized a webinar to discuss the role of biorepositories and efforts underway to increase COVID-19 sample preservation and storage, as well as the sequencing capacity in LMICs and strategies for increasing it.

Building on concerns of low access to and availability of diagnostics for COVID-19 in resource-limited settings, a survey was carried out to provide initial insight into the country-specific landscape of diagnostics. This survey report highlights the current tests available in different countries, obstacles to access and availability of diagnostics, as well as possible solutions to the identified obstacles as perceived by respondents.  

Coalition member and co-founder DNDi has just issued a policy report, ‘Another triumph of science, but defeat for access? Ensuring innovation and equitable access for COVID-19 treatments, other infectious diseases, and future pandemics’.  The report urges the international community to learn the early lessons – and avoid repeating the mistakes – of the past year when it comes to innovation of and access to COVID-19 therapeutics, a deeply neglected area within the COVID-19 response.

The coalition's Social Science Working Group and co-signatories have published a viewpoint on vaccine equity, arguing that a temporary TRIPS waiver is needed for COVID-19 vaccines and other medicines. Vaccine inequity is amongst the most significant social justice issues of our generation, and it poses a major threat to the global COVID-19 response. Urgent action is needed to improve equity and bring an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, including in low- and middle-income countries.

Dr Brenda Okware, Scientific Coordinator of the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition, was recently featured on Canada's Most Listened-to Radio Program, The Current hosted by Matt Galloway on CBC Radio. She discussed recent COVID-19 developments in Uganda as well as equitable access to vaccines in low- and middle-income countries.

PLATCOV is a phase 2 platform study assessing antivirals in early COVID-19 disease. It is looking for sites to be able to rapidly set up and recruit into this platform trial within 4 months, for an 18 month period. The study is run out of the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok, Thailand, led by Professor Sir Nicholas White and sponsored by the University of Oxford. The study has funding and is ready to begin.

The coalition convened a meeting of the coalition’s expert working groups with key funders to present projects developed in response to a shortlist of identified priority research questions.