https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/for-the-next-pandemic-well-have-gigantic-mrna-factories-in-india/articleshow/86223792.cms

‘For the next pandemic, we’ll have gigantic mRNA factories in India’

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/for-the-next-pandemic-well-have-gigantic-mrna-factories-in-india/articleshow/86223792.cms

Surojit Gupta / Updated: Sep 15, 2021, 13:44 IST

Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, says the Delta variant will make it difficult for the world to end the pandemic by 2022, missing his last year’s estimate. In a telephone interview to TOI+, Gates spoke on a range of issues, from vaccinating the elderly to creating factory capacities large enough to supply vaccines for the entire world within 200 days. Excerpts:

Last year, you talked about the possibility of ending the coronavirus pandemic by 2022. Do you still think it’s possible?

Everyone has been surprised by the Delta variant and how transmissive it is. India was the first place where there was, tragically, explosive growth in cases. The number of cases has come down from that peak, but we have to get these vaccines out far more broadly than we have done so far.

The foundation is very proud that back in the spring of 2020 we got $300 million to Serum (Institute of India). Serum has executed very well on ramping up the volume, making really record numbers of vaccines. Now, we wish we’d have even more, but in the months ahead the numbers are going to go up quite a bit. Novavax will come into the picture. We’ll have Johnson & Johnson. We’ll figure out what can be done with the booster. We’re not quite sure about that right now, but that’s probably beneficial as we get into 2022.

I’d say Delta was the worst variant that anyone ever expected, and so we probably will have cases into part of 2022, and the importance of getting the vaccine coverage up, very high, is even more clear now. My prediction, based on Delta, is that we’ll miss that goal somewhat.

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In this year’s Goalkeepers Report you highlight the innovations that Covid-19 has triggered. Which are the ones that hold potential?

Now that the world understands its vulnerability to a pandemic, there will be a huge amount of research and invention of new tools. The diagnostics – we could scale that up much faster. The therapeutics we could do a lot better. We should have a goal that we have so much factory capacity that, even within 200 days, we could make enough vaccines for the entire world.

Will this work, to be ready for the next pandemic, and will it have benefits beyond the pandemic preparedness? The answer is absolutely yes. The mRNA platform, we’re working with that German company, BioNTech, to do an HIV vaccine using their mRNA technology. We have a malaria vaccine. We think that we can do a very low-cost flu vaccine and bring the worldwide level of flu down dramatically.

Ideally, we would eradicate some of these respiratory viruses because they actually create quite a significant health burden even in normal years, and of course, they can mutate into a form that could cause the next pandemic. I’m hoping that all countries will increase their research in these areas. We’re working with the United States, Europe and the UK on increasing their research budgets. I would hope that India would join in that as well.

What is your view about the way vaccine-making has progressed in India?

Most low-cost vaccines in the world are made in India, and that has saved literally millions of lives because of the partnership we have with those three companies (Serum, BioE, Bharat Biotech). It’s kind of natural that, in the spring of 2020, as the pandemic came along, we talked with Serum about both AstraZeneca and Novavax, and we hoped that they’d do a great job making AstraZeneca, and they will be making Novavax.

Likewise, BioE – we’ve facilitated their discussions with Johnson & Johnson. We’re looking forward to that production coming out, either late this year or early next year… Bharat Biotech took the coronavirus vaccine, it’s invented in India, with ICMR, and brought that up as a low-cost vaccine, not only for India but for the entire world.

Over the years, Gates Foundation has partnered with the government of India and with Indian vaccine manufacturers in the development of affordable, high-quality vaccines – for India and for the rest of the world. It is encouraging to see India step up during the Covid-19 pandemic and develop safe and cost-effective vaccines that will save millions of lives.