Thursday, 10 October 2024
The TB Vaccine Advocacy Roadmap (TB Vax ARM) convened a discussion session on the final day of the the 7th Global Forum on TB Vaccines, exploring how to move political commitment to action to deliver new TB vaccines this decade. Moderated by Shaun Palmer, IAVI, and Carla Almeida, Brazilian TB CAB, the session featured six experts: Suvanand Sahu, Stop TB Partnership; Mike Frick, Treatment Action Group (TAG); Edna Tembo, Coalition of Women & Girls Living with HIV and AIDS (COWLHA); Phorng Chanthorn, Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance (KHANA); Leigh Raithby, Results Canada; and David Lewinsohn, WGNV. Complementary insights from the following panel session on Enabling TB vaccine development through funding, political will, open science, and engaged communities reinforced many of the interventions in the TB Vax ARM session, with additional exploration of the action needed to mobilize resources for TB vaccine R&D. This panel was moderated by Mike Frick, Treatment Action Group and Carly Young-Bailie, University of Cape Town, with interventions from Erica Chimara, REDE-TB; Jackie Cuen, We are TB / Somos TB; Deborah King, Wellcome; Shaun Palmer; and Gerald Voss, TBVI.
The panelists in these sessions shared insights across the following themes:
1. Political will and advocacy: Following the commitments endorsed at the 2023 UN High-Level Meeting on TB, including a TB vaccine within five years, concerted advocacy efforts are needed to demand that governments follow through. The WHO TB Vaccine Accelerator Council remains a key forum to be leveraged while the inclusion of TB vaccines in GAVI’s 2024 Vaccine Investment Strategy is a positive signal for the global vaccine community.
2. Increased, joint, sustained financing: To deliver multiple, effective new TB vaccines, funding cannot fall solely on philanthropy – this sector should coordinate with other funders to share the risk of individual investments. TB advocates should approach public sector and other funding bodies with solutions on how they can finance TB vaccine development in a coordinated and sustained way, with middle-income countries poised to play a leading role in this effort.
3. Genuine community engagement: Affected communities need to be supported to collaborate and lead across the breadth of research, policy, and implementation efforts in recognition of their invaluable expertise. Advocates should demand for increased resources for these efforts. Inclusion of local and religious leaders will be another essential component to build trust and dispel myths, as highlighted by Edna Tembo and Phorng Chanthorn. Broad collaboration with communities will be essential, not least between researchers and community members, in order to better inform research and development agendas and implementation strategies.
4. Ownership & recognition of ECRs: The research field needs to attract and retain early career researchers (ECRs) through efforts such as networking and collaboration opportunities, fair compensation, better working conditions, the ability to maintain ownership of their own work, and more sustainable funding opportunities.
5. Foster open science: Research and development must be transparent and optimize global collaboration. This may include through developing unified clinical trial protocols between clinical trial sponsors testing the same candidate as well as between different candidates to facilitate efficient comparison. Negative trial results must also be published to ensure the field can better learn from unsuccessful candidates and platform synergies should be identified to encourage investment by industry partners.
6. Prepare for implementation: Political divisions, underfunding, and competing health priorities will be key barriers that must be addressed now in order to ensure equitable, scaled up rollout of new TB vaccines once available. Grassroots advocacy at the national level will be crucial to maintain momentum, enforce accountability on global commitments, and inform fit-for-purpose implementation strategies.
7. Leverage knowledge and channel anger: We can harness our outrage about the lack of sufficient action by channeling it to drive policy change and funding commitments. Researchers, like David Lewinsohn, emphasized the importance of advocacy alongside their scientific work, promoting literacy and engagement in the fight against TB.
