Last week the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation committed $100 million towards the fight against coronavirus, though Gates has also warned the spread of the virus could be “very, very dramatic”.
Following their generous donation of $100 million to improve detection, isolation and treatment efforts of coronavirus, Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft, spoke at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Seattle, US, raising concerns about the future spread of the virus.
Gates spoke with optimism about the power technology has to overcome the virus and its potential economic and health ramifications worldwide, stating that although the impact of the virus could “very, very dramatic… we’re on the cusp, in science, of being able to make good tools to do the diagnosis, provide vaccines to provide therapeutics including antivirals,” he said.
“This is a huge challenge,” Gates said at the address. “We’ve always known that the potential for either a naturally caused or intentionally caused pandemic is one of the few things that could disrupt health systems, economies and cause more than 10 million excess deaths.”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation also recently committed $100 million to the WHO and other organizations in the global effort to relieve and help nations affected by the coronavirus, particularly after the first case was announced in the continent of Africa this weekend.
“Our foundation is very engaged in terms of the relationships we have with governments and the private sector to orchestrate and provide resources and hopefully contain this epidemic,” said Gates.
Science is giving us the opportunity to improve lives around the world faster than ever before. Today I was honored to give a speech on this subject at the @aaas annual meeting. #AAASmtg https://t.co/03yWD4svD6
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) February 14, 2020
