There is an end in sight to the costs of the Covid-19 pandemic, not only the lives, but the economic impact, the educational impact, the mental health impacts, but all this is pegged to even distribution of the vaccine against the pandemic.
This is according to American philanthropist Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
He was speaking during a Pan-African press conference held virtually, on Tuesday, January 26.
According to the Gates, unlike the previous pandemics, coronavirus has brought immeasurable adverse impact, which he called ‘gigantic’.
"Fortunately, there is an end in sight. Through great scientific work, many vaccines are becoming available and so that means that over the course of this year, the numbers will start to go down. And certainly, by sometime next year, I believe we'll be able to say that we're largely back to normal,” he said.
Commenting on the current status, Gates said that it has been a huge public health effort, citing that some countries have demonstrated best practices including many in Africa.
"There are some huge challenges in getting the tools out to the entire world. There is some inequality in the distribution, and that's where the foundation has put a lot of its resources in trying to get vaccine manufacturers, all throughout the globe, to be able to make these vaccines, and make sure that, particularly for those being made in Asia, that they're available broadly to all countries,” he added.
Pressed about the details, the philanthropist highlighted that there was a lot to be done in terms of acquiring the vaccines.”
"Some of them, which are particularly cheap, perhaps even single dose with Johnson & Johnson, we’ll hear about the data and the regulatory approvals in the weeks to come.”
Taking lessons along
"We have to make sure that we take the lessons from this pandemic, and we make sure we're ready for the next one to come. We should also dedicate more resources to public health,” he said.
Gates shared Africa’s experience highlighting deliberate efforts made by the continent to fight epidemics like Ebola and Polio.
"Africa learned a lot in its fight against Ebola and polio. A lot of resources and infrastructure that was developed for those have been helpful in Covid-19.
"And it just points out that we need to invest in more of those, even for the times when there's not a pandemic. The topic of how to drive the investments and make sure we don't get a loss like this; we need to make sure those are done while this is fresh in everyone’s memory.”
What can be done to improve the supply in developing countries?
While developing countries will have to wait for 2022 for the vaccines to be widely available, analysts say that until vaccines reach everyone, the new clusters of disease will keep popping up.
However, to improve supply, Gates revealed that the US government has already allocated $4 billion for the GAVI framework to further support poor countries.
"Well, the agreement we have with India is that those factories, at least half the capacity will be dedicated to going to supply, through GAVI, to Africa and other developing countries. Every day, of course, we're trying to speed this up,” he reiterated.
Like other countries in Africa, the arrival of the Covid-19 vaccine is probably the most anticipated development in Rwanda.
In a pool of prominent manufactures, the country last week announced that it had already placed an order for one million doses which are expected by February in the country.
The total number of confirmed cases in the country is now 13,885. Of these, 8,861 have recovered, while 4,843 are the active cases.
So far, a tally of 181 patients have succumbed to Covid-19 related deaths since March.