A COVID-19 vaccine and high-quality treatments can only pave the way to a strong recovery if they are made available to those who need it most. Meeting this challenge will require producing enough COVID-19 vaccine doses and treatments, making them affordable, deciding who should get access first, and planning massive vaccination and communication campaigns. International co-operation between the full range of stakeholders is paramount to all of these critical tasks. Without it, export restrictions, regulatory hurdles and other bottlenecks will hamper production, distribution and uptake, ultimately inflicting greater human, economic and social hardship upon all.