'Germ Games': Bill Gates Calls for Billions in Funding to Prevent Pandemics, Bioterrorism

10:52 GMT, 4 November 2021

Daria Bedenko

In 2015, years before the world was hit by the coronavirus pandemic, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said during a Ted talk that the world was not ready for the next possible global pandemic. It appears his words were, in a way, prophetic.

Sputnik

Bill Gates has called for a massive global effort in order to prepare the world for future pandemics, suggesting, among other things, to carry out so-called "germ games" and pour more money into vaccine research.

"It'll take probably about a billion a year for a pandemic Task Force at the WHO level which is doing the surveillance and actually doing what I call 'germ games', where you practice", Gates explained, speaking to the think tank Policy Exchange. "You say, OK, what if a terrorist brought smallpox to 10 airports? You know, how would the world respond to that?"

In a sit-down with former UK Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Gates grimly admitted that his predictions about the world's readiness for pandemics from several years ago turned out to be "a better forecast of what would happen than anyone would have wished for".

"You know, we didn't have vaccines that block transmission. We got vaccines that help you with your health, but they only slightly reduced transmission", he said. "We need a new way of doing the vaccines".

According to Gates, the world needs a global Task Force to carry out everything that he suggested. Should this happen, the billionaire hopes he will have a chance to write a book in several years that would be titled "We ARE ready for the next pandemic".

Gates' other hopes are that with the help of the global Task Force, humanity will be able to eradicate the common cold and flu while also making vaccines less expensive and providing big factories for them to be produced at.

"Along with the climate message and the ongoing fight against diseases of the poor, pandemic preparedness is something I'll be talking about a lot", Gates said. "And I think it'll find fertile ground because, you know, we lost trillions of dollars and millions of lives. And citizens expect their governments not to let that happen again".