Blueprint for R&D preparedness and response to public health emergencies due to highly infectious pathogens

Overview

On 8-9 December, a group of experts met in Geneva to prepare a process for prioritization of pathogens under the Blueprint for accelerated R&D for severe emerging diseases with potential to generate a public health emergency, and for which no, or insufficient, preventive and curative solutions exist. The group included experts in virology, microbiology, immunology, public health, clinical medicine, mathematical and computational modelling, product development, and respiratory and severe emerging infections.

An initial list of seven diseases requiring urgent R&D was agreed. This comprised: (1) CrimeanCongo haemorrhagic fever; (2) Filovirus diseases (i.e. EVD & Marburg); (3) Highly pathogenic emerging Coronaviruses relevant to humans (MERS Co-V & SARS); (4) Lassa Fever; (5) Nipah; (6) Rift Valley Fever, and (7) R&D preparedness for a new disease. Also listed were three further diseases determined to be serious, necessitating further action as soon as possible: chikungunya, severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, and zika.

Many other diseases were considered. Given the focus on improving current capacity, some disease (such as HIV or influenza) were set aside where there are major disease control initiatives, an extensive R&D pipeline, existing funding streams, and established regulatory pathways. Others (such as dengue) were deemed important for inclusion in future reviews. The importance of reviewing diseases in light of new findings was also highlighted (such as for information emerging into the public domain for zika and congenital abnormalities at the time of the meeting).

The group also undertook the first phase of the development of a set of practical tools to evaluate proposed diseases for focussed and accelerated R&D. The facilitation of R&D is expected to improve interventions and products such as diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics, behavioural interventions, and fill critical gaps in scientific knowledge to allow the design of better disease control measures.