Bill Gates: COVID-19 vaccines could be mass produced within a year

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said a vaccine for the novel coronavirus could be mass produced within a year at the earliest.

“If everything went perfectly, we’d be in scale manufacturing within a year, and it could be as long as two years,” Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, told CNN. “Dr. Anthony Fauci and I have been fairly consistent to say 18 months to create expectations that are not too high.”

In an interview with The Financial Times, Gates said his foundation would shift its focus from the eradication of the HIV, malaria and polio to responses to COVID-19. Speaking on President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend U.S. funding to the World Health Organization (WHO), he said that the WHO is an important organization and the world should support it so that it can do its job.


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