Pandemics move faster than funders

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been marked by inequity between high-income and low-income countries and consequent delays in the availability of diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines. Research has been important in guiding the pandemic response, but funding for locally relevant research in low-resource settings (LRSs) has been inadequate. Limited funding for LRSs meant that research institutions in high-income countries led the way. When research was conducted in LRSs, these were sites rather than lead-research institutions. There has been much talk about equity in the pandemic response, but equity was not evident in the allocation of research funding. In 2020, COVID-19 research received 78% (US$3874 million) of global research and development funding for emerging infectious diseases, dwarfing previous funding for pandemic response. Despite this huge financial investment, LRS researchers found obtaining the rapid funding needed to respond to a fast-moving threat difficult or impossible unless they worked with a high-income lead-research institution. Only 5·5% ($434 million) of the $7885 million allocated in 2020 and 2021 to fund COVID-19 research and development was granted to support research based in low-income and middle-income countries.

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Copyright © 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This work has been made available online in accordance with publisher policies or with permission. Permission for further reuse of this content should be sought from the publisher or the rights holder. This is the author created accepted manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01282-5.

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DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01282-5

Repository URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10023/29086