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Technical Advisory Group for Emergency Use Listing (established December 2020)

Technical Advisory Group for Emergency Use Listing (established December 2020)

The Technical Advisory Group for Emergency Use Listing (TAG-EUL) is an independent advisory group that will provide a recommendation to WHO whether an unlicensed vaccine can be recommended for emergency use under the EUL procedure, and if so, under what conditions.

The TAG-EUL shall have the following functions:

  1. To review the assessment reports prepared by the WHO Product Evaluation Group (PEG) as part of the EUL assessment process, including the initial evaluation and any updates based on additional information received by WHO. Additional information may be requested from WHO for consideration;
  2. To conduct a risk-benefit assessment of these Covid-19 vaccines’ potential use in response to the Covid-19 pandemic;
  3. To provide a recommendation to WHO if the assessed vaccine should be listed for emergency use under the EUL procedure, and under what conditions;
  4. To advise on formulating conditions for the listing should the decision be positive. Conditions will include a detailed list of post-listing commitments from the manufacturer;
  5. To consider any emergency program needs as applicable.

TAG-EUL Members

The TAG-EUL comprise six members, who serve in their personal capacity and represent a broad range of disciplines encompassing many aspects of immunization and vaccines.

Members are recruited and selected as acknowledged experts from around the world in the fields of epidemiology, public health, infectious diseases, health-care administration, vaccine safety and immunology.

BIOGRAPHY

Professor Arnaud Didierlaurent

Associate Professor in Translational Immunology at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva. His laboratory work focusses on understanding inflammatory response to infections and vaccines, with a particular focus on the immunocompromised population. He has over 20 years experience in translational research in academia and industry, including 12 years experience at GSK in global roles, from research to product launch.

Doctor Eric Lau

Infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong with a focus on surveillance and transmission dynamics of infectious diseases in human and animals, and assessment of infection control measures. He utilized quantitative analytical methods to characterize transmission dynamics in the community setting and at the human-animal interface. His previous work has contributed to the understanding and control of emerging and re-emerging human and zoonotic diseases such as SARS, MERS, avian influenza A(H7N9) and COVID-19. He has published over 110 peer-reviewed journal articles in the area of disease surveillance and infectious diseases.

Professor Morenike Oluwatoyin Ukpong

Researcher with the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife for over 15 years with 122 peer-reviewed journal publications to her credit. She has published extensively on ethical considerations in the design and implementation of clinical trials during the Ebola emergency in West Africa. She also works as the Deputy Director of the College of Health Sciences’ Partnership and Research Advancement Unit and Coordinates the Research and Innovation Support Unit. She has experience in designing, implementing and reporting both qualitative and quantitative studies for research; conducting monitoring and evaluation exercises for both general and key populations programs; and advocating for use of research outcomes for policy formulation and programming in the field of HIV, bioethics and adolescents health in Nigeria. Recently, her work on adolescent sexual, reproductive health and rights, and gender justice led to changes in policy and programs for adolescents living with HIV in Nigeria.

Professor Kanta Sabbarao

Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza and Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The University of Melbourne at The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. She is a virologist and a physician with specialty training in pediatrics and pediatric infectious diseases. Prior to her arrival in Melbourne, she was a senior scientist at the US National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over the years, Dr. Subbarao’ s research has focused on newly emerging viral diseases of global importance including seasonal and pandemic influenza, SARS, MERS and now, SARS-CoV-2. Her current research efforts are directed at understanding the biology and immune responses to influenza viruses and vaccines and SARS-CoV-2. She is an internationally recognised leader in the field of emerging respiratory viruses and is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. She serves on the Editorial Boards of PLoS Pathogens, mBio, Cell Host and Microbe and Med. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, she has been invited to serve on several domestic and international panels on animal models and vaccines.

Professor Jerome Singh

Adjunct Professor in the division of Clinical Public Health, Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Joint Centre for Bioethics at the University of Toronto, Canada, and Honorary Research Fellow at Howard College School of Law, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. He serves as the Director of the Ethical, Legal, Social Issues (ELSI) Advisory Services for Global Health Research and Development.

Professor Lynn Morris

Principal Medical Scientist and head of the HIV Virology section at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division of the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) in Johannesburg, South Africa. She holds a joint appointment as Research Professor and Director of the Antibody Immunity Research Unit at the University of the Witwatersrand and an Honorary Senior Scientist at CAPRISA. She completed her undergraduate studies at Wits University and obtained a DPhil from the University of Oxford in 1988. Lynn is an NRF A-rated researcher who has made significant contributions to our understanding of how the antibody response to HIV develops and is responsible for conducting validated end-point assays for HIV vaccine clinical trials. She has been recognized through several awards and has supervised 30 PhD and MSc students, published over 270 papers holding a current author H-Index of 60 and features on the Web of Science list of highest cited researchers in the world.