WHO – Cholera vaccine supply set to double, easing global shortage
8 January 2016
The global supply of oral cholera vaccines is set to double after WHO approved a third producer, helping to address global shortages and expand access in more countries.
Globally, OCV production is low, with demands currently exceeding supply. Sudan and Haiti last year made requests to WHO for supplies of vaccines to conduct pre-emptive vaccination campaigns that could not be filled because of the global shortage.

The vaccine producer, a South Korean company, is the latest oral cholera vaccine (OCV) manufacturer to be approved under the WHO’s pre-qualification programme, which ensures that drugs and vaccines bought by countries and international procurement agencies such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) meet acceptable standards of quality, safety and efficacy.

The addition of an additional pre-qualified vaccine producer is expected to double global supply to 6 million doses for 2016, with the potential for further increased production in the future. This additional capacity will contribute to reversing a vicious cycle of low demand, low production, high price and inequitable distribution, to a virtuous cycle of increased demand, increased production, reduced price and greater equity of access…

In 2013 the WHO created the world’s first OCV stockpile, undertaking to buy and use 2 million doses a year in order to stabilize and create demand for the vaccines…

Access to OCV has been further improved by a commitment of US$115 million over 5 years from Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to expand availability and the use of vaccine in countries with endemic cholera. Since the OCV stockpile was created more vaccines have been distributed and used than in the previous 15 years. A total of 21 OCV deployments of about 4 million doses to 11 countries have been used in various contexts: humanitarian crises in Cameroon, Haiti, Iraq, Nepal, South Sudan, and United Republic of Tanzania; outbreaks in Guinea and Malawi; and in endemic hotspots such as Bangladesh and Democratic Republic of the Congo…

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Geneva Press Briefing: WHO, IOM, UNHCR, OHCHR
8 Jan 2016
[Editor’s Note: Included in this press briefing is an extended report on the new OCV vaccine which received WHO pre-qualification in late December and its implication as above given by Stephen Martin of the WHO OCV stockpile program. His comments begin at about 05:24 in the video and runs for about 25 minutes.]