Commonground
Senior Moderator
18 December 2025 |Technical document
Overview
This document presents comprehensive, ethics-based considerations to guide national decisions on allocating pandemic products such as vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Drawing on lessons from past pandemics, including COVID-19, it outlines how countries can design fair, transparent, and effective allocation systems that balance equity, efficiency, reciprocity, procedural fairness and other ethical principles. The document also considers key trade-offs, identifies unethical practices to avoid, and provides practical guidance on operationalizing allocation through data-driven criteria, governance mechanisms, monitoring and evaluation, and contingency planning. Overall, it offers a roadmap for building resilient, adaptable allocation approaches that promote health equity and maximize public health impact during pandemics.
Download (3.3 MB)
WHO TEAM
Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention (EPP)
REFERENCE NUMBERS
ISBN: 9789240117884 (electronic version) 9789240117891 (print version)
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240117884
Overview
This document presents comprehensive, ethics-based considerations to guide national decisions on allocating pandemic products such as vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Drawing on lessons from past pandemics, including COVID-19, it outlines how countries can design fair, transparent, and effective allocation systems that balance equity, efficiency, reciprocity, procedural fairness and other ethical principles. The document also considers key trade-offs, identifies unethical practices to avoid, and provides practical guidance on operationalizing allocation through data-driven criteria, governance mechanisms, monitoring and evaluation, and contingency planning. Overall, it offers a roadmap for building resilient, adaptable allocation approaches that promote health equity and maximize public health impact during pandemics.
Download (3.3 MB)
WHO TEAM
Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention (EPP)
REFERENCE NUMBERS
ISBN: 9789240117884 (electronic version) 9789240117891 (print version)
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240117884