This Week in Global Dev: #32: Preparing For Future Pandemics, And A Landmark Moment In Global Health

Devex Podcasts

A new report reveals serious gaps in the clinical pipeline for diseases with pandemic potential, and limited investments in their research and development over the years. While research and development funding for COVID-19 reached over $14 billion from 2020 to 2022, the combined research funding for the other nine priority pathogens with pandemic potential identified by the World Health Organization total just $1.7 billion. We dig into the report — which comes from the International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat — as well as how we could improve our preparedness for the next pandemic. Despite the concerns about global pandemic preparedness, we have seen a landmark moment in the fight against malaria, with Cameroon becoming the first African country to roll out WHO's first recommended malaria vaccine into its routine immunization program. This week also marked the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Millenium Challenge Corporation, or MCC, a U.S. aid agency which set out to help the lowest-income countries clinch large grants if they could turn their economic and social policies around and demonstrate good governance. However, concerns remain over where they can operate in the future based on their unique model. For the latest episode of our This Week in Global Development podcast series, Devex President & Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar sat down with Ayoade Alakija from AVDA/ACT-Accelerator and Devex Senior Reporter Adva Saldinger to dig into these key stories. Sign up to the Devex Newswire and our other newsletters: https://www.devex.com/account/newsletters