This video has been viewed more than 36 million times on YouTube. In a follow-up speech at TED in Vancouver last month, Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist said more than 90 percent of those views came too late – when the COVID-19 pandemic had already begun. “We did not do much to prepare, although I was not the only one out there saying that. A little prevention would have made a big, big difference,” Gates said in an interview with The Sunday Magazine. Piya Chattopadhyay. In his latest book, How to Prevent the Next Pandemic, Gates outlines the lessons he learned from COVID-19 through his work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and possible solutions for the future. Gates, right, talks to PBC Chattopadhyay, presenter of The Sunday Magazine on CBC Radio. (Riverside.fm)

The lack of vaccines is over, but equality remains a problem

Of course, the pandemic is not old news yet. Gates says we are losing momentum in the fight to vaccinate the world – but argues that it is more of a distribution problem than producing vaccine doses at this point. “The problem we had to start with, which was the lack of vaccines, has been completely solved. That is, there are too many vaccines that actually expire. And so the limit on vaccination is much more the demand and the logistical support to get them. of vaccines in humans, “he said. Last September, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for 70 percent of the world’s population to be vaccinated by mid-2022. described it as an “ambitious global goal” – one that “the world is nowhere near” at the end of March. And while more than 10 billion doses have been given, according to the UN, only one percent has been given to low-income countries, leaving 2.8 billion people who have not yet received the first tranche. The COVAX Global Vaccine Distribution Program – which includes the WHO and two Gates-funded organizations – has also set ambitious targets for rich countries to distribute or pay for vaccine doses in other countries but have not yet met their targets. . Canada has donated only 15 million of the 38 million installments it promised to share from its own supplies, but demand for them has also fallen this year. Gates argued that COVAX was largely successful, despite lost goals. “The idea that we could make 14 billion vaccines enough for the whole world, you know, was just a dream. And so it’s very amazing how the rise happened,” he said. But the problem of vaccines expiring in countries like Canada shows a “giant inequality” when doses cannot reach low-income countries, he said.

Would giving up vaccine patents help?

One possible solution suggested by some experts is the removal of patents and copyright protection for vaccines, allowing more countries to produce doses for themselves. It was originally proposed by India and South Africa and supported by other countries such as the United States. In Canada, the federal government insists “has not rejected the resignation proposal”, but still has questions and is committed to finding “consensus – based solutions”. Gates, however, argues that the patent waiver in 2021 would not have substantially increased the supply of vaccines and that the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine is already available in many countries. I have so much respect for Bill Gates … but whether he likes it or not, copyright rules remain a barrier.- Winnie Byanyima, People’s Vaccine Alliance
“More than 20 companies have been trained on how to do it, one of which we funded with a $ 300 million grant, Serum [Institute of India]”It has now made more than 1.4 billion from the AstraZeneca vaccine they named Covishield,” he said. Resigning the patents by the fall of 2021 or later, he argued, would only lead to an oversupply of installments without solving the problem of distribution in low-income countries. Vials of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for COVID-19 appear during a pilot operation of a mass vaccination center located in the town of Ricany near Prague, Czech Republic in February 2021. Health Canada stated in April 2022 that almost 1.5 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in national stock have expired since January. (David W Cerny / Reuters)
Oxfam Canada policy and defense expert Brittany Lambert said giving up vaccine patents would not be as helpful now as it was a year ago, before supply issues improved. “It’s a pity it took so long that, in fact, it has become less relevant now. And, you know, there are a lot of lives lost because of that,” he told CBC Radio. However, he added that similar patent waivers could be useful for other supplies such as trials and treatments. Gates said his foundation is working with other “low-cost manufacturers” to make mRNA vaccines, as well as future products using the latest mRNA technology. Winnie Byanyima, co-chair of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, says Covishield alone will not be enough to vaccinate people in middle- to low-income countries. After India has recently increased the availability of aid downloadssaid, many doses of Covishield are sure to be used as third doses at home instead of first doses abroad. He said there were potentially 100 countries ready to manufacture MNRA vaccines now, if the patents for Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were revoked. “I feed Bill Gates so much … but whether he likes it or not, copyright rules remain a barrier for people in low-income countries,” he said. People sign up for a Moderna vaccine for COVID-19 at Saint Damien Hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on July 27, 2021. After months of having no vaccine in the country, the US donated 500,000 doses through the UN COVAX System for Haiti in mid-July of the same year. (Joseph Odelyn / The Associated Press)

The Rapid Reaction Team could reduce cases: Gates

One of his projects is to create an internationally formed team called Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization – or GERM, for short. Consisting of around 3,000 specialists from various fields, its only job would be to detect and suppress disease cases anywhere in the world, hopefully before they spread out of control. The WHO, he explained, does not have a full-time pandemic response unit like the hazmat teams you can see in an old action movie. But the idea has more in common with your neighborhood fire department. “Fortunately, [fire] “It does not kill so many people, but it is partly because we are constantly exercising and we have these people full time,” he said. Gates estimates that GERM would cost about $ 1 billion a year to operate, but said that would only increase the WHO budget by about 25 percent. Bill Gates’s latest book is entitled How to Prevent the Next Pandemic. (John Kitley)
He is no stranger to the internal affairs – and funding – of the WHO. The Gates Foundation is its second largest sponsor, more than any other country. This raises concerns about whether a private organization or individual should have such a strong potential influence on global health policies. Lambert said Gates and his foundation have done “incredible things” in the interests of global health, noting that many other billionaires are not doing it right now. But he added that governments could bear more of that burden if they taxed billionaires more effectively. “If we could find a way to tax it better, so that these decisions can then be taken democratically by governments, etc., that would be the ideal situation,” he said. Gates noted that his foundation is not a voting member of the WHO Assembly and that most of his contributions have been focused on polio eradication efforts. He added that the foundation’s work stands out mainly because governments have not historically contributed as much as they could. “No one would be happier than me if the Gates Foundation’s funding were a much smaller percentage of global spending in the years to come – because… it’s investing in a healthier, more productive world,” he wrote. Written by Jonathan Ore with archives from CBC News. Interview with Bill Gates produced by Andrea Hoang.