Prioritizing vaccines for developing world diseases

A major disparity in the burden of health will need to be addressed to achieve the “Grand Convergence” by 2035. In particular people living in low and middle income countries have a much higher burden of infectious diseases. Although vaccines have been very effective in reducing the global burden of infectious disease, there are no registered vaccines to address 60% of the current burden of infectious disease, especially in developing countries. Thus there is a pressing need for new vaccines and for prioritizing vaccine development given that resources for developing new vaccines are strictly limited. As part of the GLOBAL HEALTH 2035: Mission Grand Convergence meeting one working group assessed the SMART vaccine algorithm as a mechanism for prioritizing vaccine development for diseases of priority in the developing world. In particular, the working group considered which criteria in the standard SMART set were considered “key” criteria and whether other criteria should be considered, when prioritizing vaccines for this important set of countries.