ABSTRACT
Offering fresh perspectives on the evolution of global health, this chapter reveals most fully how one global health challenge can implicitly and practically be involved in the bedrock of another. Just such a case was the Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa that broke out in December 2013. Clearly, the world was not prepared for such an unprecedented public health emergency. First gradually, and then suddenly, the crisis exposed the weaknesses in the WHO’s leadership and capabilities. This was the spur for international efforts to find an effective vaccine, and then measure its efficacy against the virus in the affected countries. Bringing together the WHO, The Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom, governments and biomedical scientists, a vaccine was found, and the epidemic became quiescent. However, the epidemic caused shock waves throughout the world, and it was decided that a global problem like the possibility of an Ebola pandemic required a global response. Scientists, politicians and global health thinkers came together with the idea of creating a new institution that could develop vaccines against global pandemic threats and be ready to act quickly in a time of crisis. That institution is CEPI: an organisation that counted Godal as one of its founding Board Members in 2017. When Godal stepped down from the Board of CEPI in 2018, he knew that another pandemic was imminent and that CEPI’s long-term survival would depend upon its ability to develop and then distribute vaccines equitably across the world based on clinical need.
