A lesson learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic is the importance of having geographically-diversified vaccine production to meet the global, regional and local demands and enhance vaccination uptake. Equitable access to affordable and quality-assured vaccines continues to be at the forefront of initiatives encouraging vaccine manufacturers to actively partake in the production of routine vaccines and increase their adaptability to new technologies.
WHO Local Production and Assistance Unit (LPA) in close collaboration with WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia (SEARO) and WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific (WPRO) with technical support from Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is organizing the Vaccine Manufacturing Workshop for South-East Asia (SEAR) & Western Pacific regions (WPR) to address the needs on the development plans for a robust and sustainable vaccine local production capacity and environment in SEAR and WPR.
From 21st to 22nd February 2022, this workshop aims to:
- Examine and prioritize factors that affect production sustainability and efficiency
- Highlight manufacturing gaps and identify actions and next steps to improve pandemic vaccine preparedness and response capacity and capability in each region
- Review CEPI's 2021 vaccine manufacturing landscape survey data collected from SEAR and WPR
- Review WHO's activities in strengthening local vaccine production at global and regional level
- Establish strategic partnerships with networks and stakeholders to build and improve capacity for outbreak preparedness and address vaccine manufacturing gaps
- Brainstorm future activities to support improving vaccine manufacture capacity/capability and/or efficiencies in the SEAR and WPR.
Participation in the Workshop is by invitation only. Among the invited participants are vaccine manufacturers, vaccine manufacturing associations, regulatory agencies and relevant government officials related to vaccine production from within SEAR and WPR.
