COVID-19 vaccine delivery: an opportunity to set up systems for the future

The race to develop safe and effective SARS-COV-2 vaccines has moved with unprecedented speed. There are now multiple vaccines that have received emergency use authorization from the United States Food and Drug Administration and a host of candidates positioned for approval worldwide. Attention has now turned to allocation, distribution and verification of these vaccines, yet this focus exposes that the underlying infrastructure for global delivery and monitoring is threadbare and unevenly distributed. This presents both a barrier and an opportunity to deploy sustainable infrastructure. Major global stakeholders must convene quickly, collaborate, and collectively invest in global standards, legal models, common vocabularies and interoperable biometric-supported digital health technologies. As the COVID-19 vaccine effort scales, governments, private sector, and NGOs have the chance to place lasting resources needed for equitable and effective delivery that can pay dividends into the future.