Eddie Alegbe
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested a further $150million in the global response to the raging COVID-19.
This latest donation brings the total of the philanthropic organisation gesture to $250million.
After the United States, the Gates Foundation is also the second biggest sponsor of the global health body World Health Organisation (WHO).
According to a statement from the Co-chairperson of the Foundation, Melinda Gates, “We have a responsibility to meet this global crisis with global solidarity.
In addition to contributing to the development of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, these funds will also support efforts against COVID-19 in low-and-middle-income countries, where local leaders and healthcare workers are doing heroic work to protect vulnerable communities and slow the spread of the disease.”
In this latest donation by the Foundation, four areas are included, and the most pressing is the need to develop products, such as vaccines and reliable treatments.
Chief Executive Officer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mark Suzman, told journalists that: “It’s very clear that this is a pandemic of a global proportion, and the only solutions will work if they are globally applied.
“In the end, we need everyone on the planet to be vaccinated. But that is more than a year away. So in the meantime we’re looking at what we can do to minimise the loss of life and socio-economic destruction.”
A vaccine for the coronavirus is still 12 and 18 months away, according to most estimates.
But some experts are concerned that the actual implementation of a global inoculation programme may take much longer to roll out, and that some countries are failing to prepare sustainable solutions in the meantime.
