Pandemics move faster than funders

PostprintPeer reviewe

The global inequity of COVID-19 diagnostics : challenges and opportunities

Diagnostics for COVID-19 have advanced at an unprecedented pace over the last two years. Testing is a critical pillar of pandemic control, and is required for epidemiological tracking, treatment, and surveillance. Despite high quality SARS-CoV-2 viral diagnostic capability, there are vast global inequities in access. The Virology, Immunology, and Diagnostics Working Group(WG) of the COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition (CRC) brings together experts in immunology, infectious diseases, and microbiology to advocate for equity-based COVID-19 research, prioritising solutions driven by communities in low-income and lower middle-income countries (LMICs).1 This commentary shares the unique perspective of the WG on the asymmetry in COVID-19 diagnostic access between low-income and high-income settings, the barriers to these disparities, and highlights opportunities to remedy these inequities.PostprintPeer reviewe

Key social science priorities for long-term COVID-19 response.

The COVID-19 response continues to be driven by epidemiological priorities, and yet, the epidemic and responses are situated within specific political and health system contexts. Social science brings an understanding of context and draws attention to politics, power and social difference. There are four critical social science priorities for COVID-19 research and policy in the long term. First, political-economic insights can support the design of public health measures and elucidate how public health responses are produced by political systems. Second, a better understanding of the political and social structures that relate to vaccine confidence will improve public trust, acceptability, effectiveness and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. Third, development of social science perspectives on health and governance is vital to inform and untangle the complicated ways in which nationalism interacts with public health measures. Finally, social science inquiry can reveal how individuals and communities perceive, understand and construct COVID-19 risk and severity and seek help. These insights support building trust and good relations between local and international research and programme teams and between communities and researchers that will enhance confidence in the development, research and deployment of vaccines and other COVID-19 control measures