Last Tuesday, Bill Gates spoke virtually at the FinTeach Festival in Singapore. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has long advocated for developments in global health, including the widespread use of various vaccines. Billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates anticipates a lot of work ahead of mass vaccination despite the success in creating the drugs. "The Western regulators are doing a great job," he said. They've run these phase three trials in an incredibly professional way, looking for any side effects, looking at efficacy," he said. Gates marked the accomplishments of such pharmaceutical companies as Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax. He said that they had made the greatest contribution in the fight against the coronavirus. At the same time, Gates also pointed out the fact that developing countries are less optimistic about the upcoming vaccination than developed ones.
Bill Gates has forecast there could be as many as half a dozen Covid-19 vaccines approved and ready for distribution by the spring of 2021. "I expect that we'll have about six vaccines approved by the first quarter," he said.
These will be drugs from pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax. Gates is also confident that the vaccines of the other manufacturers, e.g. Pfizer and BioNTech, will also receive approval for emergency use in the near future. However, Gates did not give any comments about the sixth developer of a vaccine.
Some counters are preparing for mass vaccination. Last week, the UK became the first country to give permission for the emergency use of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccines. Vaccination in the UK started on Tuesday. Today, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will consider approval of this drug in the United States.
Notably, he points out that charities still have a lot of work to do to ensure that vaccines are distributed fairly in all countries. This is vital when it comes to less developed countries. For example, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is already working with the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, the Indian Serum Institute. This manufacturer plans to start production and active distribution of the AstraZeneca vaccine in India. The foundation is ready to cooperate with Novavax, and Johnson & Johnson as soon as their vaccines receive approval.
AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax develop drugs using traditional technologies. In other words, vaccines from these manufacturers can be created and stored at relatively low cost and with less difficulty than vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.