World Needs India’s Help For Covid Vaccine – Bill Gates

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates said the world is looking towards India as it is a leading vaccine producer that can supply to entire world.

Speaking to an Indian news agency, Bill Gates said that India was a leading vaccine producer and that the world needs cooperation from India to manufacture Covid -19 vaccine. “The world is looking at India for some of that capacity to be available to developing countries.”

Gates also spoke of his plans to brokering for a vaccine in India and said, “Brokering an idea of taking a vaccine and manufacturing it in India, even if it comes from AstraZeneca, Oxford, Johnson and Johnson and Novavax.”

Further, he said: “It is very likely that the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccine will take place in a large-scale in India sometime next year. Obviously, all of us want to get a vaccine out in India as fast as we can, once we know that it’s very effective and very safe and so the plans are coming into focus that sometime next year, it’s very likely that the roll-out will take place in a fairly big volume.”

He said he was quite optimistic that by the first quarter of next year, several Covid-19 vaccine candidates will be in their final stages.

India has three Coronavirus vaccine candidates undergoing clinical trials, including the Oxford vaccine that is being manufactured along with AstraZeneca. Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII) is conducting the trials for the Oxford vaccine in India in different cities.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the world’s largest charities, has entered into a partnership with the SII to accelerate the manufacturing and delivery of Covid-19 vaccine.

Apart from Oxford vaccine, Hyderabad-based Bharat Bio-tech is also producing Covaxin which started off with the clinical trials and Zydus Cadila too is trying to produce a vaccine.