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The Global Health Technologies Coalition issued the following statement in advance of the 73rd World Health Assembly, which will be held virtually May 18–19.The current pandemic is a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness and vulnerabilities and the need for science rather than politics to drive the decision-making. The virus respects no borders. Combating COVID-19 calls for a robust, coordinated, large-scale, and science-based global response. Innovation is our exit strategy to defeating the coronavirus, and billions of dollars of public, philanthropic, and private funding are being poured into research and development (R&D) efforts to detect, treat, and prevent COVID-19. Yet as new initiatives and programs are being set up across the globe, the need for international collaboration and cooperation grows. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been called on to coordinate several of the R&D response efforts to accelerate the development of diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics, and other health technologies to combat this novel coronavirus, and now more than ever member states need to re-commit to multilateral solutions to solve this crisis.As the world gathers for the first-ever virtual World Health Assembly, member states should seize the moment to enhance international R&D collaboration to collectively contain, mitigate, and defeat the COVID-19 pandemic. This includes supporting the WHO-led Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator and mobilizing financial resources to support global efforts that accelerate the development of new tools, including through open innovation and technology sharing, to improve access to necessary medical technologies and their distribution.Furthermore, GHTC applauds WHO’s launch of the Solidarity Trial, which is currently being carried out in over 100 countries. By using its reach and convening power, WHO is fast-tracking and scaling up randomized clinical trials around the world and enrolling an unprecedented number of patients. We call on member states to support the Solidarity Trial and participate in this WHO-led global research effort. Member states should also look beyond the current pandemic, and support the broader research needs in lower-and-middle-income countries and financially support these studies.With testing being such a central concern for all countries, GHTC is pleased to see WHO opening the Emergency Use Listing Procedure (EUL) for in vitro diagnostics for COVID-19 and hopes to see this procedure leveraged for therapeutics and vaccines as new products are developed or adapted to quell the pandemic. Many countries have regulatory gaps and lack local laboratory capacity. The EUL helps countries assess and prioritize safe and quality products for their populations and accelerates access to these innovations. While these products are still meant to go through the regular regulatory assessment and WHO prequalification, we call on WHO to further streamline and adapt technology assessment processes to accelerate the uptake of emerging COVID-19 health products. WHO should continue its efforts to help coordinate with national regulatory agencies to allow for speedier approval timelines and harmonize regional and global requirements for emerging tools and technologies to combat the pandemic.Member states should promote both public and private sector­–funded R&D for vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics, and inform WHO on these activities. Research in resource-constrained settings must be accelerated and supported to identify the tools and interventions that will save lives. Furthermore, new or adapted products to address COVID-19 must be made equitably available without discrimination of any kind, including country of residence or national origin. This means they need to be available in sufficient supply, offered at an affordable price, and appropriate for geographies with limited resources such as electricity.Finally, the pandemic is having a catastrophic impact on the most vulnerable communities worldwide and threatens progress in the fights against HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis, neglected tropical diseases, as well as antimicrobial resistance. As many program activities and capacities are being redeployed to respond to COVID-19, WHO and member states should ensure that key R&D priorities for other diseases are maintained and that funding is not diverted from existing R&D commitments.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.Several recent news articles have claimed that new strains of COVID-19 have appeared that are more virulent or transmissible. These claims, however, should be highly scrutinized. Though some forms of COVID-19 with specific mutations have spread more widely, this is more likely due to chance and the movement and interactions of their human hosts, rather than evolutionary changes impacting the virus’s transmissibility or virulence.The National Institute of Health (NIH) launched a longitudinal study this week to investigate the impact of COVID-19 on children. The study will enroll 6,000 children from 2,000 families in 11 cities across the United States. Since only a fraction of COVID-19 patients to-date have been children, the study aims to assess whether children are more resistant or less likely to develop symptoms from SARS-CoV-2 infection. It will also investigate whether people with asthma or allergies are more resistant to COVID-19. Researchers will collect bi-weekly nasal swabs and questionnaire data on social distancing practices and potential exposures. For family members that indicate potential infection, researchers will collect blood and stool samples.The COVID-19 pandemic has caused labs across the country to shutter, disrupting countless research programs and threatening the careers of young academics. In particular, researchers' work that requires long start-up times—such as when animals are involved—could be set back by months or even years. This is especially worrisome for early-career academics who were planning to finish their graduate programs or who are losing critical work that would have laid the foundation for future projects.