Context: CEPI has moved quickly to coordinate with global health authorities and partners to rapidly develop vaccine candidates against the COVID-19
- The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (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.
- It is a 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.
- CEPI will advance vaccines against known threats through proof-of-concept and safety testing in humans and will establish investigational vaccine stockpiles before epidemics begin
- It will fund new and innovative platform technologies with the potential to accelerate the development and manufacture of vaccines against previously unknown pathogens
- CEPI will support and coordinate activities to improve our collective response to epidemics, strengthen capacity in countries at risk, and advance the regulatory science that governs product development.
- providing funding to eight programmes to rapidly develop vaccine candidates against COVID-19
- Priority diseases covered are
- MERS-CoV
- Lassa
- Nipah
- Disease X
- Rift Valley fever
- Chikungunya
- The Scientific Advisory Committee is an independent body within the CEPI governing structure that provides scientific support, advice, and guidance to the CEPI Board and Secretariat.
- The current members of the Joint Coordination Group include: WHO, GAVI, EMA, FDA, MSF, UNICEF, IFRC, AVAREF, NIBSC, and Wellcome.
- The Department of Biotechnology is supporting the implementation of the Ind-CEPI Mission, “Epidemic preparedness through rapid vaccine development: Support of Indian vaccine development aligned with the global initiative of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)”, through a dedicated Program Management Unit (PMU) at Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC). The Ind-CEPI Mission was approved on 27th March 2019 with a total cost INR312.92 crore.
