Last year, you talked about the possibility of ending the coronavirus pandemic by 2022. Do you still think it is possible?
Everyone is surprised by the Delta variant and how transmissive it is. India was the first place where, sadly, there was an explosive increase in cases. The number of cases has decreased since that peak, but we have to roll out these vaccines far more widely than we have ever seen.
The Foundation is very proud that in the spring of 2020, we received $300 million from Serum (Indian Institute). The serum has performed extremely well at increasing the volume, making a record number of vaccines in fact. Now, we wish we had more, but the numbers are going to go up significantly in the coming months. Novavax will come into the picture. We’ll have Johnson & Johnson. We’ll figure out what can be done with the booster. We’re not sure about that right now, but it’s probably beneficial as we get into 2022.
I would say Delta was the worst version anyone expected, and so we’ll probably have cases in part of 2022, and the importance of getting vaccine coverage is much, much clearer now. My prediction based on delta is that we will miss that target somewhat.
In this year’s Goalkeepers Report, you highlight the innovations that COVID-19 has triggered. Which are the ones that have potential?
Now that the world understands its vulnerability to a pandemic, there will be a great deal of research and invention of new tools. Diagnostics – We can speed this up pretty fast. Therapeutic we could have done a lot better. One of our goals should be that we have enough factory capacity that even within 200 days we can make enough vaccine for the whole world.
Will it work, to be prepared for the next pandemic, and will it have benefits beyond pandemic preparedness? The answer is absolutely yes. NS mRNA platform, we are working with that German company, BioNTech, to develop an HIV vaccine using their mRNA technology. We have a malaria vaccine. We think we can make a very low-cost flu vaccine and dramatically bring down flu levels around the world.
Ideally, we would eradicate some of these respiratory viruses because they actually cause quite a significant health burden even in normal years, and of course, they could mutate into a form that could lead to the next pandemic. . I hope that all countries will increase their research in these areas. We are working with the USA, Europe and the UK to increase their research budgets. I hope India will also join it.
What is your view on the way progress has been made in making vaccines in India?
The lowest cost vaccines in the world are made in India, and it has literally saved millions of lives thanks to our partnership with those three companies (Serum, BioE, Bharat Biotech). It’s only natural that, in the spring of 2020, as the pandemic approached, we talked with Serum about both AstraZeneca and Novavax, and we hoped they would do a great job making AstraZeneca, and that they would be making Novavax. .
Similarly, bioi — we’ve facilitated their discussion with Johnson & Johnson. We are expecting that to come into production, either later this year or early next year… Bharat Biotech took the coronavirus vaccine, invented it with ICMR in India, and developed it as a low-cost vaccine. Brought in form, not only for India but for the whole world.
Over the years, the Gates Foundation has partnered with the Indian government and Indian vaccine manufacturers to develop affordable, high-quality vaccines for India and the rest of the world. It is encouraging to see India step up during the COVID-19 pandemic and develop safe and cost-effective vaccines that will save millions of lives.
What should be done to fix the problem in India’s healthcare system in the short term and what are the long term steps?
India should invest even more in its primary health system to ensure that primary health centers are well staffed, people are well trained.
Overall, the health situation in India has improved over the past decade. We’ve got vaccine coverage. We are not as high as we should be. We have the birth attendant quality — deliveries in a facility — we’ve gotten those numbers, and so the maternal-infant mortality rate has gone down.
Our foundation has focused on Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in particular for health in general. When it came to building an oxygen center covid, and the special intervention for COVID, we were able to draw on our strong ties in participating there. Although the pandemic is tragic, it highlights the importance of primary healthcare, which needs to invest more in both financial and primary healthcare quality.
If you look at the total expenditure on primary health care, it has not increased as much as it should have. India is a democracy and this will be debated as an increased priority.
coronavirus live updates
The challenge has changed from vaccine availability to vaccine hesitation. How can governments address this more effectively?
Politicians are speaking out frankly and then setting the example by vaccinating themselves, and relentlessly repeating that message, and ensuring that the trust network – whether it is religious leaders or people in villages that people watch Are and Trust – Always giving a positive message, and whatever negative rumors emerge don’t spread on social media in a way that gets people worried.
Every country has been hesitant about the vaccine. I’m not that expert in India, but if I look at the numbers, some numbers look good. Do we get 100% healthcare workers? I am told that right now it is around 70%.
The priority ones are, of course, the elderly, and I think, in India, about 65% got their first dose. We should pick it up to 100% for the second dose. The benefits of vaccines for the elderly are many, many, and thus you reduce your death. The leadership on the positive message about the vaccine, which I know, has been pretty good in India. It doesn’t like one party and the other party doesn’t like it.
This is a case where America hasn’t done the best job, but every country has to actually work on it every single day to achieve growth of every single percentage point. Right now, you are not in a big wave, but there could be a wave in the future. So, we have to maintain it as an ultra-high priority.
Too much vaccine waste occurs in many advanced economies. What should be done to prevent this and ensure global cooperation?
It has been somewhat uneven. We keep a spreadsheet of where all the supplements in the world are, and where they should be given. We were not prepared, the world was not prepared for this pandemic. And so, as we look back on Covax, where the foundation has been very involved, there are some lessons. We could have done some things better, but the key has been supply, which no one was funding in the spring of 2020 other than the US government.
We got full cooperation between western inventors and Indian manufacturers. Sadly, the mRNA is so different that there was no capacity for that particular type of vaccine outside of rich countries. It was brand new there too.
For the next pandemic, we’ll make sure we have huge mRNA factory To achieve our 100-day goal of being able to make vaccines for all in India and the rest of the developing world.
The pandemic has also widened the digital divide. What are the solutions?
A lot of students must have at least one mobile phone. And some learning around math and reading and writing can be done on mobile phones.
Obviously, when the classroom closed in India, many children did not learn easily. And so, there’s a shortage. Sadly, the quality of education in India is not as strong as you would like. If I have to say other than health that there should be an increased focus to invest in India’s future, both in terms of resources and quality, I will put health at number one, probably because that’s where I work. , and education number two.
.