SPEECH BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND COORDINATING MINISTER FOR SOCIAL POLICIES, AT THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY SIDE EVENT ON OUTBREAK PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE BY THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH SINGAPORE AND HILLEMAN LABORATORIES

1.            Our hearts go out to all the victims of Ebola Bundibugyo in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and it requires the international community to take immediate actions. I am pleased to join you at this event today, co-hosted by Singapore, and also Hilleman Laboratories. It is a Singapore-based joint venture between MSD and Wellcome Trust. It was established to develop affordable vaccines and biologics against infectious diseases that disproportionately affect lower-income countries.

2.            Today, in the midst of this epidemic in DRC, we mark an important new effort. With support from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, Hilleman will commence production of a vaccine candidate against Bundibugyo ebolavirus, for purposes of clinical trials. The candidate uses the recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus, or rVSV, platform – the same platform used for the existing licensed Zaire ebolavirus vaccine.

3.            This breakthrough effort offers a useful lens through which we can consider how the world should prepare for the next pandemic, which is an evolutionary certainty.

4.            It has been seven years since the outbreak of the
COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 exposed a painful reality, that while vaccines were developed at remarkable and record speed, access was profoundly uneven. Since then, there have been various efforts to address vaccine inequity, so that humankind will be better prepared for the next pandemic crisis.

5.            So there is, for a lack of a better term, Plan A, led by the World Health Organization (WHO), and this is the unifying global framework for preparedness and equitable access. One aspect is the Pandemic Fund which finances essential capacities – surveillance, laboratories and a trained health workforce – with a focus on low- and middle-income economies.