Technology
Bill Gates says that COVID-19 drugs will go where they are required, not just 'the highest bidder'
Microsoft founder Bill Gates said on Saturday that medicines and a future COVID-19 vaccine should not be used just for the "highest bidder."
"Instead of the people and places where we are most needed, we will have a longer, unfairer and deadly pandemic, if we allow only the highest bidder to go with drugs and vaccines," said Gates (remotely) at a conference of the VICC-19. "We need leaders in the field of equity distribution, not merely market-driven factors."
On 6 July, 21 candidate vaccines in clinical trials on human volunteers were tested by the World Health Organisation. Experts from public health warned that "vaccine nationalism" — in which countries first wrestle for a potential vaccine — would have dire consequences for both public and the global economies.
A total of $250 million has been pledged to COVID-19 research by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, "to promote diagnostics, medical treatments and ... And contribute to mitigating the virus' social and economic consequences.
Gates became Microsoft CEO in 2000 and in 2008 left Microsoft for his full-time role as a founding executive. At a TED Talk in 2015, he warned against a global pandemic in the world.
