Global Coalition Deputy Executive Secretary Priscila Ferraz Soares discussed how countries can build the capabilities needed for faster emergency response at an event on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Strengthening sustainable local and regional production and innovation capacities is essential to ensuring countries are prepared to respond rapidly to future health emergencies, the Global Coalition for Local and Regional Production, Innovation and Equitable Access highlighted during an event on the sidelines of the 81st United Nations General Assembly.
Dr. Priscila Ferraz Soares, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Global Coalition, took part in “Delivering the 100 Days Mission: Preparedness in Practice,” a panel held as part of Devex Impact House @ UNGA 81.
The discussion focused on how countries and organizations can embed the 100-Day Goal into preparedness strategies, policies and capabilities, enabling faster responses when new pandemic threats emerge.
The broader session examined how to translate the 100 Days Mission’s ambition of developing and deploying diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines within 100 days into practical action.
It brought together perspectives on the partnerships, financing, capabilities and priority actions needed to strengthen global preparedness, including lessons from the recent Bundibugyo ebolavirus response.
Building capacity before emergencies happen
Drawing on Brazil’s experience, Priscila stressed that effective emergency response depends on investments and capabilities established well before a crisis begins.
“At the strategic level, building sustainable production and innovation capabilities at the local and regional levels is essential,” she said, pointing to the role that existing public-sector capacity played in Brazil’s response to COVID-19. “One important thing is sustainable investment.”
Brazil’s experience reflects more than two decades of policies aimed at strengthening domestic production and innovation, including capacities developed at public institutions such as Fiocruz and the Butantan Institute.
These investments were critical to Brazil’s response during the COVID-19 pandemic and are now providing a foundation for preparedness for future emergencies.
Photo: The Global Coalition
At Fiocruz, these capabilities include expanded diagnostic production, vaccine manufacturing, clinical research and investment in new technologies such as advanced therapies and a 100% Brazilian mRNA platform, the first in Latin America and the Caribbean to enter clinical trials.
Priscila also noted Fiocruz’s recent designation by the World Health Organization as a regional biomanufacturing centre for the Americas, with a role in strengthening capacities across the value chain, from research and development to clinical development, regulation and production scale-up.
From national capacity to regional and global cooperation
Priscila connected Brazil’s experience directly with the creation of the Global Coalition for Local and Regional Production, Innovation and Equitable Access, launched during Brazil’s G20 presidency to bring countries and organizations together around stronger production and innovation capacities and more equitable access to health technologies.
Preparedness, Priscila emphasized, also requires mechanisms capable of sustaining these capacities between emergencies.
“At the regional level, I think we need to strengthen cooperation and collaboration mechanisms,” Priscila said.
Regional initiatives that combine support for production and innovation with pooled procurement can help sustain manufacturing capacities and make them available when crises occur.
At the global level, Priscila called for long-term international financing, particularly to support countries in the Global South in developing sustainable capabilities, alongside intellectual property conditions that enable “affordable, timely and equitable access” to the technologies people need.
These priorities are closely aligned with the Global Coalition’s mandate to strengthen local and regional production, foster innovation aligned with public health needs and promote equitable access to health products and technologies.
The panel also featured James Anderson, Executive Director for R&D Innovation at IFPMA, and Malcolm Sowah, Senior Policy Advisor at the UK Mission to the United Nations. The discussion was moderated by Rumbi Chakamba, Senior Editor at Devex.
