Global health landscape challenges triggered by COVID-19
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(2020) 40:34
Inflammation and Regeneration
REVIEW
Open Access
Global health landscape challenges triggered by COVID-19 Hiroki Nakatani1,2,3*, Kei Katsuno4 and Hayato Urabe5
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of every aspect of the globalized world, including R&D. Potentially critical R&D areas have been neglected because of the lack of market-driven incentives. However, new initiatives are emerging to address the present crisis of COVID-19 and possibly future similar incidents that will threaten humanity. In this paper, the global health landscape of R&D is discussed in terms of research focus and funding, illustrating under-funding in communicable diseases with the exception of three major infections: HIV/ AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. The initiatives triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the novel emphasis on “access” are discussed. Finally, the authors propose a new funding model to address R&D in the case of market failure, by forming alliance between government, industry, and international philanthropic organization (GHIT model), and define clear strategy of enhancing access as the way forward. Keywords: Global health, COVID-19, Access to medicine, Research and development (R&D)
Introduction The UN Secretary-General’s high-level panel on Ebola outbreak in 2014–15 submitted a report [1] to the UN General Assembly on 9 February 2016. It starts with the following line, “When 2-year-old Emile Ouamouno from Guinea contracted Ebola and died on 28 December 2013, little did anyone realize that it would set off a chain of events that would lead to the deaths of more than 11,000 people, create worldwide fear, and require the mobilization of a multibillion-dollar global response.” The history is repeated on a much larger scale in the case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by a novel coronavirus now named SARS-CoV-2. On 31 December 2019, the WHO Country Office in China was informed of cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China [2]. On this New Year’s Eve, no one imagined that year 2020 will be plagued by COVID-19, which has * Correspondence: [email protected] 1 Global Research Institute, Keio University, Room5N6, Center for Integrated Medical Research, School of Medicine, Keio University, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 161-8582, Japan 2 Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund, Tokyo, Japan Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
infected more than 24 million people and claimed almost 840,000 lives as of 29 August 2020 affecting almost all countries. However, its impact on health, society, and economy evolves over time. The figures will grow, since after devastating cities in China, Europe, and the USA, the pandemic is now moving to Latin American, Russia, and then possibly Africa. This is an expected consequence of the globalized world, in which goods and people are moving in unprecedented scale and speed. The world has seen outbreaks that endangered the globe nearly every 5 years after
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