Hyderabad made vaccines for India and World: Bill Gates
Hyderabad: Industries and IT Minister KT Rama Rao has many times faced a barrage of queries from delegates and participants at official events. But today was different and for a change Rama Rao was the one to toss the queries. The person in the hot seat was Microsoft Co-founder and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation […]
Hyderabad: Industries and IT Minister KT Rama Rao has many times faced a barrage of queries from delegates and participants at official events. But today was different and for a change Rama Rao was the one to toss the queries. The person in the hot seat was Microsoft Co-founder and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Co-chair Bill Gates.
The queries veered around the Covid-19 pandemic, learning in the past two years, emerging healthcare trends, and what needs to be done to strengthen the global healthcare system going forward. The fireside chat was part of the ongoing 19th edition of BioAsia which is being held in virtual mode this year around.
Gates, who congratulated Telangana for its work on the Covid, said the work that happened in the past years would serve to develop vaccines for the next pandemic (if any) and could also be used for work on HIV, TB and malaria.
“The last gigantic pandemic was about 100 years ago. If the next one strikes, it won’t necessarily be a coronavirus or even a flu. It is likely to be a respiratory virus because with all the human travel we have now, that is the one that can spread in a rapid way. I am actually doing a book on this. We need to get the world to spend more for research and development. Some of the rich countries ignore the infectious diseases because the disease burden was modest compared to cancer, heart disease and others. This pandemic is a reminder that we have to go back and do a better job on those to improve health equity,” Gates said to a query from Rama Rao on the learnings from the Covid.
“The speed with which we have responded was not as fast as it would have been ideal. Only a few countries upped their diagnostic capacity when the infection was low. On the other hand, the development of vaccines is really incredible. Getting them vaccines out and the subsequent speed of response will have a lasting effect. India did two things that really stand out. One is creating great vaccines with global partners and getting those vaccines out. India’s vaccine coverage is very impressive, even better than most rich countries. That is quite phenomenal. The design, manufacture and distribution of the vaccine was handled well. That ended up saving a massive number of lives,” Gates replied to a question on what aspects could have been handled well.
“In the future, we would like to get the vaccines even faster and have even better vaccines that could avoid breakthrough cases. We have a research agenda in India with our partners not just for Covid vaccines but also for creating new platforms including the m-rna and building up capacity. The new platform can also be used for dealing with difficult diseases like HIV, TB and malaria and also for diagnostics and therapeutics,” he said.
Gene-therapy is now a ray of hope for conditions like sickle cell anemia but is now prohibitively expensive. The effort should be to bring down the costs drastically to bring it within the reach of many people and this could take ten to 15 years, he said.
On a query on antimicrobial resistance (AMR), Gates said that AMR continues to be a big challenge and accounts for a significant number of deaths across the world. The disease burden is more in developing countries. Newborns contract pneumonia in many cases. “We should get rid of the infectious diseases. Incredible work is happening in the area of biology. We should find ways to cure HIV and malnutrition,” Gates said.
The Minister veered queries on the role of Hyderabad and Telangana life science segment in ensuring the health of the world, the next big thing healthtech, advice to youngsters, next big threats and others.
“I am anxious to come back to Hyderabad. I have a lot to thank the vaccine companies for their key role. They have made them not just for India but for the world,” the philanthropist said, who felt that remote consulting, use of sensors in watches and other gadgets paired with artificial intelligence to advise about sleep and diet will be the next wave of healthtech. The digital tools bring issues of privacy but they are solvable, he said.
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