US businessman and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has applauded Indian vaccine makers for delivering life-saving and cheap anti-Covid-19 vaccines across the world. Meanwhile, India’s Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, has appreciated the US and India’s partnership in the healthcare sector for providing vaccines to save the world from the deadly virus. Sandhu said that it is wonderful to save the whole world from corona infection through vaccines.
In the virtual roundtable address of the Indo-US health partnership organised by the Indian Embassy, billionaire Bill Gates said that India has delivered 150 million vaccine doses to about a 100 countries in the last year. He said that almost all the countries of the world are able to save the lives of their children through pneumonia and rotavirus vaccines, thanks to Indian vaccine makers. Children have been dying for decades due to these diseases.
Bill Gates said that the global pandemic is not over yet, and we have to be ready to prepare ourselves for similar emergencies in coming years. Cheap vaccines will be available to the world through bilateral partnerships, he added.
The Microsoft co-founder said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has discussed very deeply about global health services. Due to new discoveries through scientific research, new products are being used for treatment. This ambitious partnership is being turned into a reality. Gates said that the three vaccines — Covaxin, Corbavex and Covishield — were the products of partnerships that bridge sectors as well as borders.
“The Quad country partnership with Bio E. to produce over a billion vaccines is an example of how these partnerships can be scaled up to support an equitable response,” he said, referring to the four-nation grouping of the US, India, Australia and Japan.
Noting that risks of COVID-19 had ‘dramatically reduced’, Gates warned that it was almost certain that the world will see another pandemic, for which collaborations between vaccine manufacturers was the need of the hour. “This is what makes initiatives like the developing country’s vaccine manufacturers networks so exciting. Everyone involved understands that if we want to make COVID-19 the last pandemic, we need to invest now in collaborative efforts,” Gates said.