India plays a critical role in production of COVID-19 vaccine: Bill Gates

 

Billionaire Bill Gates said that India is a leading vaccine producer and we need cooperation from India on manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine. He said that India’s willingness to play a big role in manufacturing the vaccine and allow it to supply to other developing countries will be a critical part in containing the pandemic globally.

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Bill Gates told that the world is looking to India for a large scale production of the COVID-19 vaccine. He said “Obviously all of us want to get a vaccine out in India as fast as we can, once we know that it is very effective and very safe, and so the plans are coming into focus that sometime next year, it’s very likely that roll out will take place and take place in a fairly big volume.”

He further added “The world is looking to India for some of the capacity to be available to other developing countries. Exactly what the allocation formula looks like will have to be figured out.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been involved in global efforts to contain the pandemic. They have partnered with the Serum Institute of India for manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine.

“India will be helping to make sure we have equity. We have a model that shows that getting the vaccine out to those who need it the most will save half the lives that you’d lose if you only send it out to the rich countries,” he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic has killed about 9 32,000 people and has infected around 24 million.