Paper highlights the need for a comprehensive, globally coordinated approach to pandemic preparedness and response financing, emphasizing equity, innovation, and robust legal frameworks, while evaluating financial instruments.
Researchers from Tecnológico de Monterrey and WHO conducted a systematic scoping review to understand how to reduce the financing shortfall for pandemic preparedness and response, aiming to mitigate the risk of future pandemics with similar social and economic impacts as COVID-19. The review included 60 articles, with seven published before 2020 focusing on financial assistance to low-income countries, vaccine funding, and legal aspects. The remaining 53 articles, published after 2020, emphasized global financing mechanisms and the treatment of pandemic technologies, like vaccines, as common goods, highlighting the importance of equity and knowledge sharing.
Key topics included innovation, vaccine R&D, manufacturing, funding, and capacity-building, stressing the need for a comprehensive approach to strengthening global health systems and the crucial role of governments in vaccine markets. Legal and regulatory frameworks and ongoing investments in R&D, particularly for vaccines, were also emphasized. The review identified three significant gaps: the lack of a formal definition for pandemic preparedness and response, hindering accurate financing shortfall quantification; insufficient research on whether financing targets the most vulnerable households; and a need for analysis and evaluation of specific financial instruments for feasibility.
