Examination of the vaccine strategies and technical platforms used for the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of those used for previous emerging and reemerging infectious diseases and pandemics may offer some mutually beneficial lessons.
The unprecedented scale and rapidity of dissemination of recent emerging infectious diseases pose new challenges for vaccine developers, regulators, health authorities and political constituencies. Vaccine manufacturing and distribution are complex and challenging. While speed is essential, clinical development to emergency use authorization and licensure, pharmacovigilance of vaccine safety and surveillance of virus variants are also critical.
Access to vaccines and vaccination needs to be prioritized in low- and middle-income countries. The combination of these factors will weigh heavily on the ultimate success of efforts to bring the current and any future emerging infectious disease pandemics to a close.
Newly emerging and reemerging infectious viral diseases have threatened humanity throughout history. Several interlaced and synergistic factors including demographic trends and high-density urbanization, modernization favoring high mobility of people by all modes of transportation, large gatherings, altered human behaviors, environmental changes with modification of ecosystems and inadequate global public health mechanisms have accelerated both the emergence and spread of animal viruses as existential human threats. ...
