Bill Gates affirms that the world was not prepared for the pandemic and demands greater investment to face the next one

Posted: 10 Nov 2021 02:20 GMT

He said money should be spent on disease surveillance, vaccine development and better drugs.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates assured that the world I was not ready to face the covid-19 pandemic and stressed that increase economic investment to prevent a similar situation from happening again.

During a dialogue with Time, the philanthropist was consulted about the lessons that the coronavirus leaves and pointed out that it is very difficult for governments to maintain control of situations that do not occur very often. For this reason, he stated that rich countries should “invest in new tools pandemics, “such as diagnostics, therapies and vaccines, which he defined as “incredibly useful even before the next pandemic hits.”

In addition, Gates accused the US of lack of leadership in the face of the crisis and that was one of the reasons why the Covax mechanism was created to try to ensure the distribution of vaccines.

He also highlighted the difficulties in accelerating the development of treatments against the coronavirus and stated: “The only disease with which we have done a good job with antivirals is HIV and that is something incredible.” “Even with the flu we have done a terrible job,” he added.

Therefore, he stated that progress can be made in “broad spectrum antivirals” that can be used against multiple viruses, which requires the collaboration of academia and the private sector. However, he wondered, “How do you test them quickly?”

Regarding the diagnoses, Gates noted that “no one really thought” to make them “for billions of people.” “We need to go out and be constantly tracking respiratory diseases, doing autopsies and sequencing. I think of diagnosis and surveillance as a big thing,” he evaluated.

“We lost billions of dollars because we weren’t prepared [para la pandemia]. For tens of billions of dollars you can invest and make the chances of it happening again are extremely low “, continued the Microsoft co-founder who, finally, said that this “will protect the rich from pandemic”, but will also contribute to “global health” – where the “inequalities are dramatic”– so that there are “tools” for example for the “eradication of malaria, tuberculosis and HIV”.