He and the government plan to fork out to create vaccines in Norway
Bill Gates is donating millions of crowns to create vaccines. The headquarters where they will be created will be based in Norway. The goal is to stay ahead of the epidemics of the future.
“The time when something can be done to reduce the spread of deadly infectious diseases is short. History tells us that it takes years to develop new vaccines. While they are being developed, it is already too late,”says Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Aftenposten met with Gates, still the richest man in the world, at the company's showroom in Davos during the World Economic Forum.
“The flu epidemic is the most critical. It can lead to an incredible number of casualties. The most famous "Spanish flu" in 1917, when the death rate in many countries reached 5%. The number of losses exceeded the losses in the First World War, "- says Gates.
If you believe the simulation, then such a scenario could lead to the fact that within 12 months, 30 million people will die. If the vaccine can be obtained within 22 weeks, this figure will be more than halved. If the vaccine is ready within 6 weeks, the death toll will be reduced to several tens of thousands.
“Flu outbreaks occur all the time, but they either spread slowly and had high mortality, or spread quickly and mortality was low. The likelihood that an epidemic with high mortality, combined with a rapid spread, could recur is low.
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Four billion crowns
He warns that other types of epidemics and pandemics can have tragic consequences for the world, both in terms of the economy and the loss of human lives.
On Wednesday, Gates announced that, along with a coalition that includes the Norwegian government, among others, he will pledge a large sum to create vaccines against world-threatening epidemics from which there is currently no protection.
The initial investment in the newly established Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) fund is approximately four billion kronor. Norway and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation invested 1 billion and 855 million kronor, respectively. The Wellcome Fund is also investing 855 million kroons, and Germany and Japan are also participating in the fund's investments.
The initiative to create the fund arose in connection with the Ebola epidemic, which claimed 11 thousand lives in 2014 and 2015. The epidemic has exposed significant deficiencies in the world's preparedness for epidemics and pandemics.
“Both Ebola and Zika have shown that the world is tragically unprepared to identify local outbreaks and respond quickly enough to prevent them from becoming global pandemics,” Gates said.
Ready-to-use vaccine prototypes required
CEPI Director John-Arne Røttingen points out that there is no commercial market for vaccines for certain types of epidemics that especially threaten developing countries. He cites the fact that despite the discovery of Ebola as early as 1976, in 2014, when the epidemic began, there was no vaccine available.
“While there have been several promising prototype vaccines ready for human trials, they've been on the shelf for nearly ten years. The outbreak of the epidemic, however, had one positive consequence: when the world community began to take action against the epidemic, we were able to quickly start testing. What could normally take eight years was done in a year,”Röttingen tells Aftenposten.
At first, CEPI intends to focus on three viruses: MEPC, Nipaha and Lasse, but the fund's work could be expanded to cover other epidemic-causing viruses. The goal is to create possible prototype vaccines so that they can be quickly tested and used when an epidemic breaks out.
“We will not be able to create a completely ready-made vaccine in advance, because there are no people who would risk being infected before the outbreak becomes a fact. But we can, for example, check in advance that the most likely vaccine prototypes are reliable enough and produce the required antimatter,”says Röttingen.
CEPI would also like to invest in faster vaccine development processes that will enable them to be used more quickly in the event of entirely new and unknown epidemics. The headquarters of the fund will be in Norway, branches - in London and Delhi.
“It is a very big plus that the headquarters will be based in Norway. This means that we have a decent professional environment,”Prime Minister Erna Solberg told reporters in Davos.
Facts: CEPI
CEPI stands for Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. The foundation was created by the authorities of Norway and India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the British Welcome Foundation and the World Economic Forum.
CEPI envisions a global partnership to develop new vaccines to prevent epidemics.
The governments of Germany, Japan and Norway, as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the British Welcome Foundation, have invested approximately NOK 4 billion in first funds into the Foundation.
CEPI's goal is to thwart epidemics by developing reliable and effective vaccines against known infectious diseases that, in the event of a disease outbreak, can be quickly deployed before they become global epidemics.
CEPI is about to begin its work by developing vaccines against the MEPC, Lassa and Nipah viruses, which have the potential to cause serious epidemics.
The coalition also aims to help develop vaccines against several strains of Ebola, Marburg and Zika viruses.
To achieve these goals, CEPI will need significant additional investment, and the initiators of the Foundation are asking governments and organizations to do their part in protecting the world from future epidemics.
An epidemic can destroy society
Gates said he is confident that the cooperation with Norway and other partners will be successful and that the money will be used as intended.
It may be that the creation of vaccines will be useful in other areas, for example, against biological weapons and for the creation of vaccines against other types of diseases, he explains.
Erna Solberg emphasizes that it is also important for the Western world to help developing countries in the fight against epidemics.
“Epidemics claim lives and destroy society in a way that only wars and natural disasters do. They don't know any boundaries, they don't care if you are rich or poor. If we protect those who are vulnerable, we protect ourselves, too,”says Solberg.
Those who need them the most have no money
Siri Forsmo, a physician and professor of public medicine at the Norwegian University of Technology NTNU, says vaccines are often most needed by countries that do not have the means to pay for them.
“The use and creation of vaccines is largely due to the fact that there are countries that can pay. For example, the measles vaccine has long been included in the vaccination program in most Western countries. However, it is not offered to children in many poor countries, although they may be the ones who need it the most,”says Forsmu.
She says that there have been discussions about the high cost of vaccines.
“First of all, rich countries have the opportunity to vaccinate their population. Those who create vaccines are interested in selling them, the system works that way. Therefore, it seems to me that Bill Gates' initiative is very appropriate from the perspective of global health, as well as from a moral point of view,”Forsmu emphasizes.
Øystein Kløvstad Langberg