Navigating The Future of Seasonal and Pandemic Influenza in Canada: A National Foresight Analysis on Pandemic Influenza Vaccine Readiness

Publication Summary

The influenza vaccine landscape is evolving rapidly, presenting both opportunities and challenges for Canada’s pandemic preparedness and response strategy. Scientific innovations such as broadly protective and universal influenza vaccines, novel vaccine delivery methods, new adjuvants, AI-driven surveillance and antigen design, and mRNA and other vaccine platforms could transform the field. Meanwhile, increased supply chain risks, declining vaccine confidence, and significant geopolitical shifts are risks and challenges that may disrupt the use of those new technologies or directly result from it. These trends underscore the need for foresight analysis to anticipate change and prepare for future scenarios to navigate the future of seasonal and pandemic influenza in Canada.

The National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCCID) was asked by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to assist with a foresight analysis for pandemic influenza vaccine preparedness. With a tight timeline, NCCID consultants determined rapid, but comprehensive methods to conduct a scan of current discourse and solicit insights from key informants from public health, vaccine regulation and industry.

In this report, foresight analysis provides a structured approach to examining how emerging developments—rather than established trends alone—may shape future system performance. It explores the dimensions that will influence influenza vaccine policymaking and key public health decisions in the future by identifying emerging opportunities and risks associated with societal, geopolitical and technological change. This report examines Canada’s influenza vaccine readiness through a foresight lens, identifying six signals of change from a rapid review of literature, key informant interviews, and a structured prioritization exercise with experts. The six signals of change represent potentially significant developments characterized by uncertainty, strategic relevance, and system-level implications. They were assessed by the experts for their potential impact on and probability to significantly influence vaccine readiness, as well as their anticipated timeframes of influence.

This analysis does not aim to provide a comprehensive or predictive account of the future. Rather, it identifies a set of plausible developments that may influence vaccine readiness over the coming decade. The findings are intended to support strategic thinking and preparedness planning under conditions of uncertainty, rather than to prescribe specific policy actions.

In our analysis, we recognize the “influenza vaccine system” as an integrated set of processes spanning the full lifecycle of influenza vaccine development and deployment, including interconnected and iterative processes across stages.