Realising the 100 Days Mission: Accelerating Defence and Health Capabilities for Medical Countermeasures Readiness

The speed at which vaccines and other medical countermeasures (MCMs) can be developed and deployed is critical in determining whether an emerging pathogen is contained or becomes a global emergency. COVID-19 demonstrated both the extraordinary scientific progress made in recent years and the major gaps that remain. Although a safe and effective vaccine was developed in record time it was still not available quickly enough to prevent devastating global health, economic and social consequences. This experience underlined the importance of the 100 Days Mission (100DM), launched by the United Kingdom in 2021 and endorsed by the G7, G20 and global leaders, which calls for vaccines to be ready for initial authorisation and manufacturing at scale within 100 days of recognising a pathogen with pandemic potential. Modelling suggests that had COVID-19 vaccines been available within 100 days, more than 8.3m deaths would have been prevented, along with USD $1.4 trillion in productivity losses due to illness and $63bn in hospitalisation costs.