GL15

Effective and affordable vaccines are urgently needed, in particular for prevention of tuberculosis in adults and adolescents. While tuberculosis vaccine research and development (R&D) is currently slow, the experience with vaccine R&D for SARS-CoV-2 suggests this can be accelerated. This requires better understanding of the human protective immune responses, animal models that predict protection in humans, agreed laboratory correlates of protection, alternative clinical trial approaches to de-risk clinical development, and better insight in the demand for a vaccine, qualitative as well as quantitative - amongst others. The COVID-19 experience also shows the importance of ensuring access and uptake, requiring clear strategies towards regulatory approval, global and country policy development, commercialization, public health delivery and vaccine acceptance. Central to all this is a need for more funding, but also of more strategic use of that funding.