Women delivering aid during COVID-19 pandemic in India. UN Women/Fahad Abdullah Kaizer
Key Points:
- A new study says specific efforts and resources are still required to save lives from SARS-CoV-2.
- Over 350 experts from 100 countries developed a global consensus of 41 statements and 57 recommendations to end the pandemic.
- One highly ranked recommendation is to maintain a vaccines-plus approach.
The COVID-19 pandemic may feel like it’s over, but it is not. That’s one of the messages of a new study by over 350 multidisciplinary experts in more than 100 countries. Published in Nature, the study says specific efforts and resources are still required to save lives.
Jeffrey Lazarus, co-director of the Viral and Bacterial Infections Program at ISGlobal, Associate Professor at the University of Barcelona, colleagues carried out a Delphi study, a well-established research methodology that challenges experts to garner consensus on answers to complex research questions. A multidisciplinary panel of 386 academic, health, NGO, government and other experts from 112 countries and territories took part in three rounds of structured consultation to develop global consensus on how to address the many COVID-19 issues going forward.
The result is a set of 41 statements and 57 recommendations across six major areas: communication; health systems; vaccination; prevention; treatment and care; and inequities.
Three of the highest-ranked recommendations are:
- adopt a whole-of-society strategy that involves multiple disciplines, sectors and actors to avoid fragmented efforts;
- whole-of-government approaches (e.g. coordination between ministries) to identify, review, and address resilience in health systems and make them more responsive to people’s needs;
- maintain a vaccines-plus approach, which includes a combination of COVID-19 vaccination, other structural and behavioral prevention measures, treatment, and financial support measures.
The researchers also prioritized recommendations for developing technologies (vaccines, therapies and services) that can reach target populations.
Only six recommendations had more than 5% disagreement, including further economic incentives to address vaccine hesitancy and a symptoms approach to diagnose COVID-19 in settings with low access to testing.
“Our study does echo some earlier recommendations, such as the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and WHO’s 2022 plan on Strategic Preparedness,” said Lazarus, “but what makes this work unique is the very large number of experts consulted, the wide geographical representation, and the study design, which emphasizes consensus building and identifies areas of disagreement. It may prove to be a model for developing responses to future global health emergencies.”
Information provided by Barcelona Institute for Global Health.