KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 13): While current Covid-19 vaccines have prevented severe disease and death very well, they are missing two key things, said Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates (pictured).
In an interview over Twitter with American public health researcher, and Professor and Chair of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh, Prof Devi Lalita Sridhar on Wednesday (Jan 12), Gates said that first, vaccines being used now still allow “breakthrough” infections and second, the duration of protection they provide appears to be limited.
“We need vaccines that prevent re-infection and have many years of duration,” he said to a question on what scientific or tech breakthrough would make the biggest difference now to ending the Covid-19 pandemic.
On the challenges of global vaccination access, he said during 2021, the supply of vaccines was limited and they mostly went to wealthy countries.
“Now we have a lot of supply overall and the problems are logistics and demand. The health systems in developing countries are a limiting factor,” he said.
Gates said as countries experience the Omicron wave, health systems will be challenged and most of the severe cases will involve unvaccinated people.
He said that once Omicron “goes through a country”, then the rest of the year should see far fewer cases and Covid can be treated more like the seasonal flu.
As for the possibility of other dangerous Covid variants popping up in 2022, Gates said a more transmissive variant was not likely, but there “have been a lot of surprises during this pandemic”.
“Omicron will create a lot of immunity at least for the next year. We may have to take yearly shots for Covid for some time,” he added.
Gates also touched on the subject of “online misinformation” around vaccines, masks and other interventions, saying that trusted authorities like the World Health Organisation and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention need more resources for surveillance and “to communicate better”.
“Social media got behind on trying to get factual information out — there will be a lot of debate about how to do better on that,” he said.