National science agency CSIRO has released a report on Australia’s pandemic preparedness, making 20 recommendations to the government in six science and technology focus areas, including developing an on-shore vaccine manufacturing capacity .
Titled Strengthening Australia’s Pandemic Preparedness: Solutions Enabled by Science and Technology, the paper draws on lessons learned over the past two and a half years of Covid-19, with contributions from 146 experts from 66 organizations across government, industry and research.
The report highlights that “almost all of Australia’s vaccines are imported, creating the potential for supply chain disruption, particularly during a pandemic”. He argues that the country requires the ability to produce a diverse set of vaccine technologies because imports will be highly competitive during the emergence of a new virus.
The report notes that CSL has an established manufacturing capacity in inactivated viruses and live attenuated viruses in Australia with these products “currently exported in large volumes” and CSL has plans to further expand its cell-based facility.
Highlighting the challenge of developing a local vaccine manufacturing industry, the report states that “Australian companies face barriers, such as high entry costs and small clinical trial enrollment populations, to scaling up manufacturing on the ground”.
Overall, the report calls on the government to make “enhanced and coordinated national investments in science and technology” to provide “a broader range of complementary preparedness and response approaches”.
The six science and technology focus areas are:
- preclinical capabilities for medical countermeasures
- manufacture of vaccines
- therapeutic reuse and new antivirals
- point of care diagnosis for case identification
- genomic analysis of pathogens and their variants, i
- exchange of data that inform response strategies.
Produced by CSIRO Futures, the strategic and economic advisory arm of the national science body, each focus area also corresponds to a target for 2030. Among those targets is an Australian land-based vaccine manufacturing capacity and infrastructure able to support phase I to phase III clinical trials. According to the report, this capability must be diversified across vaccine types, including recombinant protein and viral vector technologies.
The recommendations aim to avoid the severe costs incurred under the Covid-19 pandemic in any large-scale viral outbreak. The report found Australia’s GDP shrank by $144 billion from December 2019 to March.
It also notes that less quantifiable costs, including “impacts on mental health, social cohesion, employment, child development and equity can be more long-lasting and can far exceed direct costs”.
The federal government said it would release a response to the report soon.
Health and Aged Care Minister Mark Butler said the report is important for learning the lessons of Covid-19 and “looking at how we are better placed to act faster, more decisively and more informedly “.
“Delivering increased vaccine manufacturing capacity in Australia is a big step towards future preparations and boosting research into other viruses means our health experts are well placed to respond quickly to an emerging threat,” he said. Minister Butler.
Science and Industry Minister Ed Husic noted that the Commonwealth has already supported the development of a vaccine manufacturing facility in Melbourne. He also added that “the National Reconstruction Fund will help strengthen our medical supply chains, supported by a $1.5 billion Medical Manufacturing Fund.”
Final agreements for a 10-year partnership between the Commonwealth, Victorian Government and Moderna were finalized earlier this month. As part of this partnership, Moderna will establish an mRNA vaccine manufacturing facility at Monash University.
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