Reaching the World Health Organization’s target of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population by mid-2022 is critical for preventing new Covid-19 outbreaks, according to health leaders around the world.
The aim, according to Bill Gates, symbolises a top-down strategy to fighting the coronavirus that ignores the reality on the ground, a mindset that he believes must change before the next pandemic.
‘We’ll never make it to 70 percent. Who’s joking who? We live in a world where countries spend $12,000 per person per year on medicine and countries spend $200 per person per year,’ Gates remarked, referring to his foundation’s successful polio vaccine campaigns. ‘You can only do things that have a tremendous impact if you’re playing the $200-per-person game.’
Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, spoke with POLITICO in Munich about not only improved ways to tackle Covid-19, but also how to better plan for and respond to the next public health disaster. According to him, the two are intertwined. If the first problem can be solved — such as increased manufacturing and distribution of Covid-19 vaccine and therapies — a future pandemic will be easier to manage.
Optimizing vaccination distribution is one aspect of that preparation jigsaw. COVAX, the world’s vaccination facility, has now reached the point where it can allocate and distribute vaccine doses to governments. COVAX, on the other hand, is still having difficulty getting shots into arms rapidly, particularly in low- and middle-income nations with weakened health systems.
According to Gates, the approach should be tailored to the preferences of each country. He speculated that countries, including the 30 that still have 10 percent immunisation rates, may only wish to target vulnerable populations.
‘It is up to the countries to decide. What is Ethiopia’s goal? What is Nigeria’s goal? The actual benefit is where you can get any good bucks per year of life saved if there’s Covid immunisation,’ the wealthy philanthropist stated. ‘That’s going after people who are elderly or have other diseases that put them at high risk for this.’
Nonetheless, building health services in poorer nations, according to Gates, is critical to better distribution in the next pandemic. More skilled vaccinators and resources are available in well-structured health systems to combat vaccination reluctance.
‘Vaccine hesitancy would definitely establish an upper bound well below that when you want to reach 95 percent coverage,’ Gates said. ‘Dead bodies play a part in people’s willingness to accept immunizations. You don’t see the same thing if you’re a really youthful, extremely thin population. But you can overcome part of that if you get the trust hierarchy, which in many countries is religious leaders, to publicly vaccinate their children.’
The Gates Foundation is one of the most generous supporters of the Covid-19 struggle. It has contributed billions of dollars to vaccine distribution, as well as diagnostic and therapeutic drugs. It has also contributed $120 million to help countries and regions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia respond more effectively.
That work will continue, according to Gates, who also stated that he is starting to consider how the world may prepare for future disease epidemics. In May, he will publish a book on pandemic preparedness.
The global health community has struggled to keep up with the virus during the last two years. However, given that Omicron cases are on the decline in dozens of countries and hundreds of millions of vaccine doses are being delivered each month, the world may be able to think more broadly about readiness and future reaction.
This is what dozens of global health leaders met to discuss this week at the Munich Security Conference.
‘In 2015, many people discussed what it would take to avert a pandemic. Gates stated, ‘The recipe hasn’t altered. To detect the next virus early, we need to fund global surveillance. We need to invest in research and development for better diagnostics and medicines. Given the number of deaths, economic damage, and other negative consequences of the pandemic, the cost of funding the new technologies… is nearly nothing.’
Gates and colleagues hope to improve vaccine manufacture and administration by utilising a vaccination to defend against Covid-19, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. According to Gates, the vaccine’s mechanism may likewise alter.
‘We don’t want to utilise a needle in the future.’ Because secretory antibodies in the nose are required to stop infection, you may find that you take your first dose as a micro-patch and your second dose as an inhalation. ‘And we’ve never been really good at it,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the reasons [the vaccine] doesn’t prevent illness. You could even consider eradication if we come up with an infection blocker. But we’re a long way from there.’
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