The COVID-19 pandemic has killed millions of people worldwide and led to devastating economic impact. A vaccine is one of the biggest hopes for stopping the pandemic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is working with multiple stakeholders to ensure groups at higher risk of becoming infected and dying (e.g. elderly people and healthcare workers) receive a safe an effective COVID-19 vaccine in the next six months.
The WHO’s Director-General asked your help to build a plan to achieve this goal. What should be included in this plan?
Our main goal is to ensure the world's most at-risk populations receive a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine in the next six months.
Clarifying information:
For a vaccination campaign to work, a very high percentage of the population must be vaccinated, so compliance is the key driver. Addressing public mistrust is complex and context-dependent; it is important to act at global and national levels.
As part of the vaccine selection decision, COVAX has obtained clinical, manufacturing and cost data for six vaccines at late stages of development. All six vaccines are produced by different manufacturers.
Clarifying information:
In case of severe supply constraints, COVAX designed a risk scoring system to determine the speed at which vaccines are delivered to different countries. Countries with a higher risk score receive vaccines faster. The scoring system does not impact the total number of vaccines allocated to each country. A country’s risk score is calculated based on specific parameters, grouped into two categories: “threat” and “vulnerability”.
Clarifying information:
Difficult questions are marked as "Follow-up questions" throughout the case. Follow-up questions are common during MBB interviews and are also called "structured brainstorming":
- Demand analysis: communication strategies to increase compliance rates
- Supply analysis: alternatives to make all 2.1 billion doses
- Prioritisation: strengths and weaknesses of the risk scoring system
This is a standard MBB case covering a very relevant topic that could easily come up in your interview. This is a very comprehensive case in terms of industries (Public Sector and Healthcare) and skills (organizational behaviour, supply and demand analysis and risk assessment).
This case better fits an interviewer-led approach. The case is relatively long (~40min), so you may skip some follow-up questions if the candidate is unable to proceed fast enough.