Recently, Bill Gates proposed to create a global organisation tasked with providing the first response to potential infectious disease outbreaks, drawing a certain amount of criticism online.
American multi-billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates said in an interview with the YouTube channel, Veritasium what the main threats to humanity are after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The businessman pinpointed two main threats: climate change and bioterrorism.
“One is climate change”, Gates said, “every year that would be a death toll even greater than we had in this pandemic”.
But there is also another threat no one wants to talk about, according to Gates. “Somebody who wants to cause damage could engineer a virus and so that means the chance of running into this is more than just naturally caused epidemic like the current one”, he said.
The billionaire stressed that “there will be more pandemics”, as humans interact with other species and these viruses are crossing a species’ barrier, noting, however, that humanity could increase its preparedness so “we never have a death toll anywhere near that we have today”.
Last month, the Microsoft co-founder warned that the world is not ready for the next pandemic, which he said could be ten times worse than the ongoing outbreak that has already claimed the lives of 2.2 million people worldwide and triggered a huge economic crisis.
Bill Gates and his wife Melinda founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which specialises in a wide range of public health projects. It gives aid to fight against transmissible diseases, as well as to widespread vaccine programmes.
Follow the PNI Facebook page for the latest news and updates.
