Public statement for collaboration on COVID-19 vaccine development

On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) was informed of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China.  Chinese authorities identified the SARS-CoV-2 as the causative virus on 7 January 2020, and the disease was named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by WHO on 11 February 2020. As part of WHO’s response to the outbreak, a Research and Development (R&D) Blueprint has been activated to accelerate the development of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics for this novel coronavirus.

Under WHO’s coordination, a group of experts with diverse backgrounds is working towards the development of vaccines against COVID-19.

The group makes a call to everyone to follow recommendations to prevent the transmission of the COVID-19 virus and protect the health of individuals. The group also thanks everyone for putting their trust in the scientific community.

We are scientists, physicians, funders and manufacturers who have come together as part of an international collaboration, coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO), to help speed the availability of a vaccine against COVID-19. While a vaccine for general use takes time to develop, a vaccine may ultimately be instrumental in controlling this worldwide pandemic. In the interim, we applaud the implementation of community intervention measures that reduce spread of the virus and protect people, including vulnerable populations, and pledge to use the time gained by the widespread adoption of such measures to develop a vaccine as rapidly as possible. We will continue efforts to strengthen the unprecedented worldwide collaboration, cooperation and sharing of data already underway. We believe these efforts will help reduce inefficiencies and duplication of effort, and we will work tenaciously to increase the likelihood that one or more safe and effective vaccines will soon be made available to all.

Randy A. Albrecht, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA

Mohamad Assoum, Mercy Global Health              

Luigi Aurisicchio, on behalf of Takis Biotech, Italy

Dan Barouch, Center for Virology and Vaccine Research, USA

Trevor Brasel, The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), USA        

Jennifer L Bath, ImmunoPrecise Antibodies, Canada

Sina Bavari, Edge BioInnovation Consulting and Management, USA

Maria Elena Bottazzi, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA

Gerhard Beck, Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices, Austria

Tom Brady, Flow Pharma Inc, USA           

Kate Broderick, Inovio, USA

Will Brown, Altimmune Inc, USA

Scot Bryson, Orbital Farm, Canada

Ricardo Carrión, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, USA

Miles Carroll, Public Health England, UK

Keith Chappell, University of Queensland, Australia         

Daniel S. Chertow, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Sandra Cordo, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Wian de Jongh, on behalf of the Prevent n-CoV consortium (AdaptVac, ExpreS2ion, Copenhagen University, Leiden University Medical Centre, Wageningen University and Tubingen University)

Natalie Dean, University of Florida, USA

Rafael Delgado, Hospital Universitario 12 de Octubre, Spain

Dimiter Dimitrov              

David A. Dodd, GeoVax, Inc., USA            

Paul Duprex, Center for Vaccine Research, University of Pittsburgh, USA

Luis Enjuanes; Centro Nacional Biotecnología, Spain

Jeremy Farrar, Josie Golding, Charlie Weller, on behalf of Wellcome Trust, UK

Mark Feinberg, Swati Gupta and Ripley Ballou, on behalf of IAVI, USA

Antonella Folgori, on behalf of ReiThera, Italy

Thomas Friedrich, University of Wisconsin, School of Veterinary Medicine, USA

Simon Funnel, Public Health England, UK

Luc Gagnon, Nexelis, Canada

Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA

Vipin Garg, Altimmune Inc., USA

Volker Gerdts, on behalf of VIDO-Intervac, University of Saskatchewan, Canada

Nora Gerhards, Wageningen Bioveterinary Research, The Netherlands   

Christiane Gerke, Head of Vaccine Programs/Head of Vaccine Innovation Development, Institut Pasteur, France

Carlo Giaquinto, Department of Women and Child Health, University of Padova, Italy       

Prakash Ghimire, Tribhuvan University, Nepal    

Nikolaj Gilbert, Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), USA

Sarah Gilbert, University of Oxford, UK

Marion F. Gruber, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Farshad Guirakhoo, GeoVax Inc, USA

Bart L Haagmans, Erasmus Medical Center, The Netherlands                       

M. Elizabeth Halloran, Center for Inference and Dynamics of Infectious Diseases, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and University of Washington, USA

Scott Harris, Altimmune Inc, USA

Hideki Hasegawa, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Japan             

Richard Hatchett, on behalf of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Norway

James Hayward, Applied DNA Sciences, USA

Sheri Ann Hild                   

Peter Hotez, Baylor College of Medicine, USA     

Youngmee Jee, Seoul National University, College of Medicine, Republic of Korea

Charu Kaushic, Institute of Infection and Immunity, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CHIR), Government of Canada

Alyson A. Kelvin, Dalhousie University, Canada

Larry D. Kerr, Office of Global Affairs, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Bernard Kerscher, PEI, Germany

Jae-Ouk Kim, International Vaccine Institute, Republic of Korea

Seungtaek Kim, Institut Pasteur Korea, Republic of Korea

Jason Kindrachuk, University of Manitoba, Canada

Otfried Kistner, Senior Consultant and Independent Vaccine Expert, Austria

Gary Kobinger, Université Laval, Canada

Marion Koopmans, Viroscience Department, Erasmus Medical Centre, The Netherlands 

Philip R. Krause, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Greg Kulnis, Nexelis, Canada

Paul Henri Lambert, Centre of Vaccinology, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Nathalie Landry, Medicago Inc., Canada

Roger Le Grand, Inserm-CEA-Université Paris Saclay, France

Robin Levis, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Mark G Lewis, Bioqual Inc, USA

Joshua Liang, Clover Biopharmaceuticals, China

Jinzhong Lin, on behalf of Fudan University, China

Ira Longini, University of Florida, USA     

Shabir Madhi, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

Jessica E. Manning, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Peter Marks, Director, on behalf of Food and Drug Administration/Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research 

Hilary D. Marston, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Federico Martinón-Torres, Hospital Clínico Universitario de Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Sebastian Maurer-Stroh, on behalf of the GISAID Initiative

John W. Mellors, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, USA

Ali Mirazimi, Department of Laboratory medicin, Karolinska institutet, Sweden

Kayvon Modjarrad, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, USA              

Stefan O. Mueller, CureVac, Germany

Vincent J. Munster, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

César Muñoz-Fontela, Bernhard-Nocht-Institute for Tropical Medicine, Germany

Aysegul Nalca, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), USA

José Manuel Ochoa, Altimmune Inc., USA             

Dave O’Connor, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA

Lidia Oostvogels, CureVac, Germany

Nisreen M. A. Okba, Erasmus Medical Center, The Netherlands

L. Jean Patterson, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Joe Payne, on behalf of Arcturus Therapeutics

Jonathan Pearce, on behalf of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), UK

Stanley Perlman, University of Iowa, USA

Margaret Louise Pitt, WRAIR/ U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), USA

Anuradha Poonepalli, Health Products Regulation Group, Health Sciences Authority, Singapore

Dieter Pullirsch, Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency, Austria

Damian Purcell, Doherty Institute, Australia

Chuan Qin, Institute of Laboratory Animal Sciences (ILAS), CAMS & PUMC, China

Angela Rasmussen, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, USA

Scott Roberts, Altimmune Inc., USA

Estefania Rodriguez, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine, Germany   

Ted M Ross, Center for Vaccines and Immunology, University of Georgia, USA

Chad J Roy, Tulane National Primate Research Center and Tulane School of Medicine, USA

Reid Rubsamen, Flow Pharma Inc, USA

Anna Laura Salvati, Italy

Andrew Satz, EVQLV Inc, USA

Hanneke Schuitemaker and Johan Van Hoof, on behalf of Janssen Pharmaceuticals Companies of Johnson & Johnson, USA

Robert Shattock, Imperial College, UK

John Shriver, Sanofi, USA

Gale Smith, Novavax Inc. USA

Peter Smith, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK

Isabel Sola, Centro Nacional Biotecnología, Spain

James Southern, Adviser to South African Health Products Regulatory Authority 

Jonathan M Spergel, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, USA      

Sybil Tasker, Codagenix Inc, USA

Chien-Te Kent Tseng, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, USA

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response/Biodefense Advanced Research and Development Authority

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Jean Marie Vianney Habarugira, on behalf of the European & Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP)                               

Veronika von Messling, on behalf of German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany

Tony T. Wang, Food and Drug Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, USA

Jeffrey Wolf, Heat Biologics Inc, USA       

Ningshao Xia, Xiamen University of China, China

Yingjie Xu, on behalf of Shanghai Jiaotong University, China

Paul R Young, University of Queensland, Australia

Hang Yu, on behalf of Shanghai RNACure, China

Xuefeng Yu, CanSino Biologics, China

Tal Zaks, on behalf of Moderna, USA

Peter Daszak, President, EcoHealth Alliance, New York, USA