COVID-19 Partners Platform—Accelerating Response by Coordinating Plans, Needs, and Contributions During Public Health Emergencies: COVID-19 Vaccines Use Case

INTRODUCTION

On January 30, 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak a public health emergency of international concern under the 2005 International Health Regulations.¹ This triggered a cascade of events that led to the introduction of the COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plans (SPRP) that emphasized the importance of responding to the crisis as “One UN.”^1–2

While country readiness and response plans are key to tackling international public health emergencies, planning and coordinating across WHO member organizations have been challenging, and particularly so during an evolving global pandemic. To make the SPRP operational, WHO Health Emergencies Programme created the COVID-19 Partners Platform (referred to as the Platform; https://covid19partnersplatform.who.int/), conceived and implemented alongside other key operational support platforms and partnerships across health services and preparedness sectors (Table)^1–5 to provide overall coordination and operational support to countries. This multidisciplinary effort aimed to guide the efforts of national and international partners, including donors, to support governments urgently to prepare, detect, and respond to epidemics and inform national planning while putting countries in the driver's seat.⁶ COVID-19 is a uniquely pressing emergency that can benefit from the real-time coordination of planning and tracking of activities that offers the following capabilities.

1. Consolidation of technical guidance and self-assessments enabling countries, territories, and areas to develop and …