Today at the Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit hosted by the Government of the United Kingdom, Administrator Samantha Power announced that the United States, through USAID, intends to provide $150 million over three years, subject to Congressional appropriations, to support the work of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The new commitment will support key goals of the American Pandemic Preparedness plan and G7 100 Days Mission by stimulating and accelerating the development of life-saving vaccines and other countermeasures against biological threats, including COVID-19. Once the President’s Budget Request is released, additional information will be shared about how the U.S. will help advance shared goals.
As a key component of the U.S. Government’s global health security and pandemic preparedness efforts, USAID works in partnership with other nations, international organizations, and non-governmental and private stakeholders to build country capacities to prevent outbreaks, detect threats early, and respond rapidly and effectively to disease outbreaks and to prevent them from becoming national or global emergencies. Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools available to end this phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and spurring innovation of these tools and other life-saving countermeasures will be critical to stopping future pandemics and for uninterrupted health services during public health emergencies.
Today’s announcement builds upon USAID’s existing partnership with CEPI and will support CEPI’s three strategic objectives: 1) Preparing by advancing access to safe and effective vaccines; 2) Responding by accelerating the research, development, and use of vaccines during outbreaks for new infectious disease threats; and 3) Creating durable and equitable solutions for outbreak response capacity. This work is an important part of efforts to protect people everywhere – including by addressing the historic under-investment in vaccines against emerging infectious diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential that have predominantly afflicted communities in lower-income countries. Furthermore, these funds build on growing scientific collaboration with CEPI through the Department of Health and Human Services.
Since the start of the 21st century, infectious disease outbreaks–such as Ebola outbreaks in Africa and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic–have become more severe and frequent. COVID-19 has taken the lives of millions of people and threatened hard-earned progress on decades of development gains, making clear to the world the devastating power of infectious disease threats. This will not be the last pandemic the world faces, and the United States is committed to expanding its efforts to ensure the world is better prepared to prevent, detect, and respond to future outbreaks, epidemic and pandemic threats, including with partners like CEPI.