Imperial modelling shows 100 Days Mission could have saved 8 million lives

Deploying effective COVID-19 vaccines in 100 days could have saved over eight million lives.

More than eight million deaths might have been avoided during the COVID-19 pandemic if safe and effective new vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 were developed and delivered within the first three months, new analysis finds.

Research from Imperial's MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis found that a successful 100 Days Mission in response to COVID-19’s emergence would have had the greatest impact on the lives and livelihoods of people living in less wealthy countries. This would have averted 15.7 million COVID-19 hospitalisations and saved 4.8 million lives in lower and middle-income countries. The peer-reviewed research is published in The Lancet Global Health.

We show how massively effective it is to invest in developing new safe and effective vaccines at speed Dr Oliver Watson MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis

Assessing the potential economic impact of the 100 Days Mission, researchers estimate that the lives saved would represent a monetary saving of as much as $14.3 trillion based on the value of statistical life years. In addition, they estimate that productivity losses due to illness amounting to $1.4 trillion and $63 billion of hospitalisation costs would have been averted globally.

The modelling study shows that countries with vaccination campaigns that began too late to prevent the large death toll associated with the Delta wave of COVID-19 in 2021 would have benefitted significantly more from the 100 Days Mission than countries whose populations were largely protected through vaccination by the time the more virulent Delta variant became dominant.

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These findings should supercharge global commitments to the 100 Days Mission Richard Hatchett CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations

The 100 Days Mission is spearheaded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). This global health security plan for the world aims to develop and manufacture new vaccines against a future pathogen with pandemic potential within 100 days of the pandemic threat being recognised. Three months, or 100 days, is around a third of the time it took the world to deliver the first safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines after SARS-CoV-2 was identified.

Dr Oliver Watson, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, said: "By putting real numbers on the sizeable public health and economic gains, we show how massively effective it is to invest in developing new safe and effective vaccines at speed and making them available as quickly as possible to those at highest risk"

Gregory Barnsley at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: "Our research helps highlight that the 100 days mission is more than the scientific effort to develop vaccines faster, improvements in infrastructure and vaccine equity will save lives in future pandemics"

Richard Hatchett, CEO of  the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, said: "These findings should supercharge global commitments to the 100 Days Mission. This work shows in the starkest terms why the world needs to be prepared to move faster and more equitably when novel pandemic disease threats emerge. Investing in preparedness now to make the 100 Days Mission possible for future incipient pandemics will save millions upon millions of lives and protect the global economy against catastrophic losses."