Seoul: South Korea can play a key role in the "100 days mission" for vaccine development for emerging infectious diseases, the chief executive of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has said, calling Seoul a "global leader" in pandemic response.
According to Yonhap News Agency, CEPI CEO Richard Hatchett made the remarks in an interview in Seoul, noting that his agency has been discussing expanding partnership with South Korea to support global efforts to develop emergency vaccines for infectious diseases within 100 days of an outbreak. Hatchett was on a two-day trip to Seoul to discuss the matter with the South Korean government, the private sector, and academic institutions.
"Why Korea? The strong central government, clinical trial capability, strong institutions and private sector partners," Hatchett stated as reasons for the ongoing efforts to hold such an exercise in South Korea. "South Korea was a global leader from its excellent response to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and a global leader in its efforts to pursue the 100 days mission."
CEPI's 100 days mission, launched in 2022, aims to bolster the global community's preparedness for infectious diseases, such as the Ebola virus, the coronavirus, and Mpox, as well as potential future pandemics. The mission, adopted by the group of seven and the group of 20 nations, strives to drastically reduce the timeline of emergency vaccine development to 100 days. Typically, it takes five to 10 years to develop vaccines for new diseases, with the COVID-19 vaccine development taking about a year.
"When we developed vaccines (for COVID-19), it was as fast as that had ever been done, but it was not fast enough," Hatchett remarked. He emphasized that while the COVID-19 vaccine development was unprecedentedly fast, it was accomplished in a "world that was not prepared to do the rapid vaccine development." With the lessons learned from the pandemic, Hatchett believes the timeline can be further reduced.
CEPI posits that many of the more than 8 million people who died during the pandemic might be alive today if the 100 days mission had been achieved to develop safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19. "CEPI will expand the number of pathogen families we have the blueprints for, work with regulators to understand how the prototype vaccines perform on the vaccine platforms they are familiar with, and work to swiftly execute clinical trials when a new vaccine emerges," Hatchett explained.
In a collaborative effort, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) signed a memorandum of understanding with CEPI last year to enhance preparedness for future pandemics. CEPI has provided funding of US$357 million over the past few years to South Korea's private and academic partners, including SK Bioscience Co., which developed South Korea's first homegrown COVID-19 vaccine in 2022. With CEPI's support, SK Bioscience has initiated a global clinical trial for a messenger-RNA (mRNA) vaccine project for Japanese encephalitis.
Hatchett also called for the international community's commitment to responding to the global health crisis, amid concerns sparked by the United States' recent withdrawal from the World Health Organization. He noted that growing political and economic tensions worldwide have led many countries to reduce their international assistance budgets to bolster defense capabilities, negatively affecting international disease prevention efforts.
"South Korea is one of the few countries that are actually making efforts to extend and expand their efforts in this area ... and such investments will provide an opportunity for the country to gain leadership," Hatchett stated. The South Korean government has provided $33 million in support to CEPI from 2020 to 2023 and significantly increased its budget for official development assistance last year, including $18 million of support for CEPI.