Leaving no-one behind in global vaccination against COVID-19

Whilst, to date, and perhaps not surprisingly, wealthier nations have treated the immunisation of their own citizens as the top priority, it is becoming increasingly clear that for our societies to regain an existence closer to what we previously knew, a high level of immunisation across the entire world will be required. This is based both on humanitarian ethics, and the pragmatic need to prevent international spread of diseases like COVID-19. How is this going to be achievable, who is working on it, and what is Australia’s role?

Dr Chris Morgan is an Australian development practitioner and paediatrician with 30 years experience of health development in poorer countries . For eight years he lived with his wife and family working in rural hospitals and community health in Nepal and Tibet. Whilst he holds honorary appointments at University of Melbourne and the Burnet Institute, in 2020 Chris left Australia to work at an INGO owned by Johns Hopkins University that has over 3,000 staff in 30+ country offices across Africa and Asia.  Dr Morgan also serves on the expert advisory group that helps the World Health Organization set global policy on the vaccine against COVID-19, chairs WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Immunisation Technical Advisory Group, and provides expert advice to the Australian Government’s efforts to provide technical advice to countries in our region on COVID-19 vaccine roll out.

He has thus experienced the pandemic and its continuing surges from various viewpoints: virtually from a dozen or more country offices in Africa and Asia, from WHO HQ in Geneva and its regional office in Manila, as well as from his physical location in Washington DC, USA; whence he will address this special Melbourne Forum zoom event. No one is better placed than Dr Chris Morgan to lead us in discussion of this critical topic , with ample time for questions.