Everyone hoped that the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic was behind us late last year and that things would soon return to normal. Unfortunately, the omicron variant had other ideas.

While studies suggest omicron cases may be less severe than other variants, especially for the vaccinated, this variant has spread around the globe faster than any other virus in history.

Despite the considerable challenges omicron poses, there is still cause for optimism that this pandemic can end in 2022.

That’s because the key to both defeating COVID-19 and preventing a future pandemic remains the same: Global collaboration behind, and support for, innovation that reaches everyone.

Over the past two years, through the remarkable work of researchers, industry and public authorities around the world, we have seen science move at record speed to develop life-saving vaccines and therapeutics.

Groundbreaking COVID-19 vaccines have changed the trajectory of this disease and saved millions of lives.

This also would not have been possible without the support of governments advocating for global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines, including Saudi Arabia, which was the first Gulf nation to pledge to the Gavi COVAX AMC vaccine alliance, which supports 92 low- and middle-income economies.

The Kingdom allocated $150 million during its G20 presidency in 2020 as part of its $500 million (SR563 million) pledge to the Access to COVID-19 Tools-Accelerator, launched by the World Health Organization in April 2020 to develop methods to fight the disease.

A development on that momentum is needed with further and better solutions, including vaccines that are variant-proof, reach more people, and are easier to deploy in remote areas.

After the Ebola crisis in West Africa, a coalition of governments and organizations built in 2017 the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, to accelerate vaccine development against emerging infectious diseases with epidemic potential.

CEPI was designed to focus where most industry and government players do not: Shepherding vaccine technologies from the lab to the market. Its funding helps R&D phases allowing vaccine science and clinical trials to go on to become fully licensed.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust have recently increased their support for the Norway-based foundation by 50 percent to $300 million to help prevent future epidemics.

Even before COVID-19 struck, CEPI was supporting research into other coronaviruses, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which continues to pose a threat in the region. It was also funding the development of novel mRNA vaccines, which is one of the reasons this exciting new technology emerged so quickly when we needed it to help fight COVID-19.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, CEPI moved quickly, announcing its first vaccine partnerships on Jan. 23, 2020, when there were just 581 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally.

Since then, it has invested in a diverse portfolio of 14 vaccine candidates, with 12 presently in active development, and played a key role to support vaccine manufacturing at risk — reserving facilities and vital components for production, like glass vials, at the same time as vaccines were being developed.

CEPI is now funding vital research to advance the next generation of COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including innovative technologies aimed at protecting against multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants.

It aims to develop and deploy effective vaccines within 100 days of a pathogen being sequenced — a combination of remarkable scale and speed that could save millions of lives and trillions of dollars.

Bringing partners together to identify and fill gaps in the ecosystem and build diversified product portfolios for the global good, will be key in preventing and preparing for emerging epidemic and pandemic threats.

We believe health should be viewed as an investment in security rather than a cost, therefore early investment in R&D plays a vital role in saving lives.

Saudi Arabia has understood this, having committed $150 million to CEPI in 2020 as part of its generous $500 million funding pledge.

While the COVID-19 pandemic continues to devastate lives and livelihoods around the world, it also represents a critical opportunity to build back better structures, so the world is better prepared to prevent deadly and costly epidemics and pandemics.

It is vital we capitalize on the rare alignment of political will, practical experience, and technical and scientific progress emerging from this pandemic to prevent such devastation from happening again.

Increased support for innovative mechanisms like CEPI is the best way to ensure a pandemic like COVID-19 never happens again.

• Joe Cerrell is Managing Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation