How should the G-7 approach global health security?

June’s summit of the G-7 group of nations is fast approaching, and global health is likely to dominate the talks as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. The meeting is the first major gathering of the G-7 since 2019, and the international sense of crisis over the coronavirus remains acute. The United Kingdom — which is hosting the summit and setting the agenda — listed “leading the global recovery from coronavirus while strengthening our resilience against future pandemics” at the top of its policy priorities. Prime Minister Boris Johnson last year announced a five-point plan for global health, which was later built on by Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s four pillars. On Friday, Johnson unveiled plans for a Global Pandemic Radar to track coronavirus variants and vaccine resistance. But experts told Devex that the country’s ambitious global health security posture has been undermined recently by drastic cuts to its aid budget and that prioritizing the bolder points of the nation’s global health agenda risks giving insufficient attention to the ongoing effects of the pandemic on lower-income countries. So what should the G-7 be doing for global health, and how might this be achieved? A “common sense of crisis” unites all G-7 members in 2021, and the “stakes are higher” for the event, according to Dr. Christoph Benn, ‎director of global health diplomacy at the Joep Lange Institute. He said the much-repeated phrase “no one is safe until we are all safe” is already emerging as a slogan, adding that if its meaning is remembered by leaders — and initiatives support it — “there’s a high chance this can be a legacy summit.” Reducing COVID-19 vaccine inequity and improving access to immunizations and other coronavirus tools, especially through financing, were key priorities for all the experts interviewed by Devex. “Can the big countries really agree to share doses more aggressively, just because the timing is hugely important, and can they agree to provide finance for manufacturing capacity?” asked Amanda Glassman, executive vice president at the Center for Global Development. “Most leaders probably do share the view that … no one is safe until everyone is safe. ... But the question is: Are you willing to put the [required] level of effort into it?” She added that the U.K. has experienced a “big framing issue” as a result of the aid budget cuts, which gave the impression that it is “not connecting all the dots … in terms of pandemic response and preparedness.” Because many vaccines have been purchased already, delivering them is the key task for G-7 leaders, Glassman said. She predicted there will also be a “very welcome” role for the G-7 in using multilateral development banks to finance and prioritize delivery — but doubted this year's summit would reach “that level of ambition.” Also important for Glassman was creating incentives to increase vaccine manufacturing — an issue highlighted in the wake of Serum Institute of India’s announcement that its vaccines will not be exported until the end of the year. “That’s a huge blow to COVAX [the global initiative for equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines] and needs to be made up by the other manufacturers. And that’s possible if we have sharing of surplus and, in the medium term, increasing manufacturing capacity through other sources,” Glassman said. For Benn, the “vaccine nationalism” that saw high-income countries rush to secure doses for their own populations — at the expense of lower-income nations — “was an illustration of almost a complete breakdown of trust in the system” that has yet to be repaired. “Most leaders probably do share the view that … no one is safe until everyone is safe. ... But the question is: Are you willing to put the [required] level of effort into it?” --— Amanda Glassman, executive vice president, Center for Global Development Consequently, there is an “absolutely essential” need to “reestablish a system that provides sufficient trust that there will be a fair mechanism of distribution, ensuring that there would be fairer access” to vaccines, he added. He said the G-7 summit will hopefully address the issue or even create a system with equitable distribution and access. Michel Kazatchkine, former executive director at the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said he expects G-7 governments to discuss sharing their surplus vaccines, alongside funding the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator. “There is a global call for urgent dose-sharing of that surplus, and I can't imagine the G-7 will not discuss that,” said Kazatchkine, who is a member of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. G-7 member states France and the United States have already committed to sharing a total of 110 million vaccine doses with the rest of the world. Kazatchkine said he expects an announcement from the summit on support for the ACT-Accelerator. The United Kingdom’s G-7 health agenda will also examine antimicrobial resistance, digital health, and clinical trials in the development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. But with the COVID-19 pandemic still a threat, “it might be too soon to have that discussions with much seriousness, because it’s hard to speak about the fabulous R and D [research and development] and manufacturing and deployment ecosystem we’d all like to see,” Glassman said, “when we’re not even putting up enough money or donating the doses to get vaccination done yet for most of the population for this current crisis.” She added that an overemphasis on preparing for future pandemics rather than addressing the current one “could look really tone-deaf” to nations currently enduring the worst of the crisis. “I am worried [that leaders] give the erroneous impression they are not responding to low- and middle-income countries' needs,” Glassman said.