Innovative responses look for solutions

Global Map of COVID-19 Innovations

StartupBlink in collaboration with Health Innovation Exchange (a UNAIDS initiative) and the Moscow Agency of Innovations launched a Coronavirus Innovation Map this week. The platform aims to connect innovators with venture capital and government officials in order to support the response to COVID-19 and address its impacts across five categories: prevention, diagnosis, treatment, information and life and business adaptation. Over 500 innovations are currently on the visual database, and the Health Innovation Exchange has committed to producing a report on shortlisted innovations to share with country partners.

Local Challenges, Local Solutions: African Innovators and COVID-19

Among the WHO reforms in 2018 were three key priorities: increasing capacity around digital health, recruiting diverse and younger leaders, and seeking local solutions to local challenges. This past week, the WHO AFRO Regional Office hosted an inaugural virtual event at the intersection of all three: showcasing solutions by young African innovators that have been implemented to address local challenges in responding to the pandemic. From the 350 innovators in attendance, the virtual event highlighted eight projects, including interactive public transport contact tracing apps, mobile testing booths and low-cost critical care beds. The event builds on a ‘Hackathon’ the WHO AFRO Region hosted in April to develop scalable solutions that align with one of the priority areas, providing seed funding to three projects.

Ten actions to boost local manufacturing in developing countries

Record demand globally for medical supplies like PPEs, diagnostics and treatments for COVID-19 has disproportionately affected affordability and access in developing countries. While local and regional production has gained more prominence, producers and investors in developing countries often face unique challenges. The UNCTAD highlights at least five: lack of capital, technical and resource capacity; low quality and regulatory standards; weak enabling policy frameworks; small markets and unstable demand; and poor physical infrastructure. In order to increase coordination and cooperation with existing initiatives (e.g. WHO voluntary technology pool and ACT Accelerator Global Response Framework) and partner agencies (e.g. The Global Fund, UNICEF, UNIDO, and UNAIDS), the UCTAD proposes the following ten actions to boost medicine production capacity in developing countries:

1. Investment in skills development to ensure GMP-compliant production
2. Sharing COVID-19-related technologies to enable affordable mass production
3. Target impact investors to access necessary capital
4. Build partnerships to initiate “lighthouse” projects on low-hanging fruit
5. Improve investment incentives to increase local firms’ sustainability
6. Use streamlined regulation to facilitate investment
7. Invest in infrastructure
8. Emphasize the regional approach to reduce costs
9. Seek funding from official development assistance
10. Ensure sustainability of efforts despite an unpredictable market