Bill Gates says the coronavirus is a pandemic and a ‘once-in-a-century pathogen.’ Here are the solutions he’s proposing to fight it. [ARTICLE]

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Bill Gates has warned for years that the world is not ready for a deadly pandemic. Some of his ominous predictions are now playing out as the deadly coronavirus spreads around the globe. "In the past week, COVID-19 has started behaving a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we've been worried about," Gates wrote in a new op-ed for the New England Journal of Medicine. Gates referred to the outbreak as a pandemic, even though the World Health Organization has not yet declared it a pandemic. "In any crisis, leaders have two equally important responsibilities: solve the immediate problem and keep it from happening again," Gates wrote. "The COVID-19 pandemic is a case in point. We need to save lives.” Wealthy countries should supply low- and middle-income countries in Africa and southern Asia with trained healthcare workers to monitor the virus' spread and deliver vaccines. Gates predicted that large-scale trials for a coronavirus vaccine could happen as early as June. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health's infectious-disease center, recently said that he hopes to start testing vaccine candidates in people by mid-April. Drug development is typically a multiyear process that can cost roughly $1 billion in the US. Gates said making vaccines affordable for everyone is the "Right strategy" for containing the coronavirus outbreak. On Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar declined to promise that a future coronavirus vaccine would be affordable for all Americans. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has already contributed $100 million toward the fight to contain the outbreak. In his op-ed, Gates said warding off a pandemic will require billions of dollars. Although China has seen a drop-off in its rate of new cases in recent days, the coronavirus has spread to at least 55 other countries. NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths. Source | Create Website | Criar site | Crear sitio web | Créer un site Web