Washington: As the world waits restlessly for a coronavirus vaccine, US billionaire Bill Gates is optimistic that they could be starting to produce it within a year in a best-case scenario.
“If everything went perfectly, we’d be in scale manufacturing within a year,” Gates said during Fareed Zakaria’s GPS programme in CNN… “It could be as long as two years.”
The world’s second-richest man is funding research of the seven most promising ideas for a vaccine as part of his philanthropic work on the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
The philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft Corp ruled out the possibility of vaccine production in September this year, as some have said.
“Dr (Anthony) Fauci and I have been fairly consistent in saying 18 months to create expectations that are not too high,” Gates said. Dr Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force.
The USA has been the worst-hit country with 8.1 million coronavirus cases and over 55,000 deaths.
