The case for New Zealand to have its own COVID-19 vaccine programme

A vaccine is the only clear exit strategy that will allow New Zealand to return to normality 3 In response to the pandemic, over 78 vaccines are in early-stage development 4 Most will not reach the market and given the time it takes to develop, assess and manufacture a vaccine, it is unlikely that New Zealand will be able to access the required number of vaccine doses within the short to medium term Furthermore, experience with the last pandemic vaccine for influenza virus H1N1 in 2009, suggests that countries will almost certainly require vaccine manufacturers to meet their own requirements before allowing export to other countries 5,7 Indeed, there was a recent report that the President of the US may have sought to buy the German company CureVac with the stipulation that any vaccine produced would be "only for the USA" 7 This risk was also evident in June 2019, when Pharmac advised that it could not source additional influenza vaccines as "there's no way of buying more doses of flu vaccine for this winter because supplies are simply not available" Global manufacturers were starting to make stock for the northern hemisphere, and there were no more supplies of the southern hemisphere vaccine 8 Not surprisingly, given the global nature of pandemics, the World Health Organization has in the past9 and once again raised concerns about the global capacity to manufacture and equitably distribute sufficient quantities of an effective vaccine 5 There is a high risk that New Zealand will be unable to access an internationally developed vaccine in sufficient quantities to relax border restrictions, once a vaccine is approved for public use New Zealand is well recognised for its ability to produce outstanding scientific discoveries and technological innovation and on a global scale punches well above its weight 10-12 It has the organisations and infrastructure capable of manufacturing vaccine at scale, once the appropriate vaccine formulation has been decided, it has world class vaccine safety and monitoring agencies, and internationally recognised scientific capabilities in its universities and medical research institutes in the design and development of leading edge therapies 13'14 Funding and focusing this uniquely New Zealand capability will substantially reduce the timelines for having a vaccine widely available in New Zealand