Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)

CEPI is an innovative global coalition between public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organizations established to accelerate the development of vaccines and other medical countermeasures against pandemic threats, so they can be accessible to all people in need.

The impacts of climate change, such as rising temperatures, droughts and floods, habitat destruction and population displacement, heighten the risk of disease transmissions and outbreaks. These developments pose huge challenges to the world’s progress in achieving CEPI’s mission to respond to the next unknown pandemic with a new vaccine in just 100 days.

CEPI is supporting the development of vaccines against a number of climate-sensitive pathogens of pandemic potential, such as chikungunya, Lassa, Nipah and Ebola. Other than its funding projects, CEPI is also actively engaged in highlighting the links between climate change and infectious disease emergence to the wider community. One highlight is the publicity campaigns on CEPI’s website (“The Viral most wanted”, “Climate change special report”), detailing how climate change exacerbates the risk of pandemics, urging for collaborative actions to respond to climate change from the lens of public health, as well as investments in scientific research to tackle both pandemic threats and climate change.

CEPI can support the efforts to build climate-resilient and sustainable health systems through its experience in research and development, as well as its established networks and partnerships. CEPI’s expertise in vaccine manufacturing and supply chain management can also support member states in addressing climate-related challenges in the supply chain and procurement.

Supporting the following commitments:

• Conduct climate change and health vulnerability and adaptation assessments (V&As) at population level and/or health care facility level.
• Use the V&A and HNAP to facilitate access to climate change funding for health.
• Develop an action plan or roadmap by a set date to develop a sustainable low carbon health system (including supply chains).

Country experience:

CEPI’s work on priority pathogens focuses on diseases that mainly affect lower- and lower-middle income countries, which are disproportionately affected by climate change. The 250+ R&D partners collaborating with CEPI  are geographically varied, spanning across Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, North America and South America. Alignment with sustainable development goals and environmental sustainability is an important area in the due diligence process in CEPI’s selection of partners.

Links:

Site in English: https://cepi.net/