How to Achieve Indigenous Self-sufficiency in Vaccine Development? A Roadmap

For every nation state with a large population (Pakistan being the 5 largest), it is imperative to have indigenouscapability to meet one's own requirement of vaccines for one's own set of prevailing diseases. Imports arecostly and not always readily available as became evident globally during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.Microbial antigenicity may also vary significantly from region to region on account of mutations. Henceefficiency of vaccine too can vary accordingly.Vaccines have dramatically reduced the burden of numerous infectious diseases, promoted individual andsocial growth, prosperity and wellbeing across the globe. In the coming decade, vaccines are likely to savetwenty-five million lives1 , and will continue to be the cornerstone of public health programmes. It is estimatedthat six out of every ten infectious diseases in humans are transmitted by animals and 70% of emerging and reemergingdiseases are either spread from animals to humans or infected animals to the healthy ones throughinsects.2 The role of vaccines in human health is therefore not only limited to humans but is vital to controldisease transmission from animals to humans as well.