Why Is The Number Of Africans Dying From COVID-19 So Low? Bill Gates Wonders

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), has said that he does not understand why coronavirus numbers have not been as high as predicted in Africa.

Recall that Gates and his wife, Melinda had in more than one occasion, warned that there will be dead bodies all over the streets of Africa if the world does not act fast enough.

Melinda said her heart was in Africa, adding that she is worried that the continent might not be able to handle the devastating effect of the virus.

But in his end of the year note, Bill said he was happy his prediction about Africa has not happened, “One thing I’m happy to have been wrong about—at least, I hope I was wrong—is my fear that COVID-19 would run rampant in low-income countries. So far, this hasn’t been true,” he wrote.

In most of sub-Saharan Africa, for example, case rates and death rates remain much lower than in the U.S. or Europe and on par with New Zealand, which has received so much attention for its handling of the virus.

“The hardest-hit country on the continent is South Africa—but even there, the case rate is 40 percent lower than in the U.S., and the death rate is nearly 50 percent lower.

“We don’t have enough data yet to understand why the numbers aren’t as high as I worried they would get — but gave probable reasons Africa was not as affected as expected.”

Meanwhile, Nigeria is currently fighting the second wave of the coronavirus. The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 had last week announced a second wave of the dreaded virus.

The Federal Government on Tuesday directed civil servants from grade level 12 and below to stay at home. They are to remain at home for five weeks following the second wave of the COVID-19 disease in Nigeria.

Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, on Friday stated that COVID-19 related deaths now stands at 1,246.

Nigeria currently has a total of 82,747 confirmed cases in the country.

Gates Foundation Says We’ll Need to Work Together to Vaccinate 7 Billion People

PAUL HANDLEY, AFP

The wealthy Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation called Wednesday for global cooperation to ready COVID-19 vaccines for 7 billion people, while offering an additional US$150 million toward developing therapeutics and treatments for the virus.

While it is likely to take as many as 18 months to develop and fully test a safe coronavirus vaccine, global authorities and businesses need to start now on plans to manufacture it, said foundation chief executive Mark Suzman.

“It’s normal to have, at maximum, hundreds of millions of doses manufactured,” he said.

“When you are dealing with a novel pathogen like COVID-19, as and when we get to identifying a successful vaccine, we are going to need billions of doses.”

“There are 7 billion people on the planet,” he said. “We are going to need to vaccinate nearly every one. There is no manufacturing capacity to do that.”

Suzman announced the foundation, started and controlled by mega-billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates, is adding US$150 million to the $100 million it announced in February to help in international efforts to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Much of the money is to support the development of COVID-19 diagnostic tests, therapeutic treatments and vaccines, and to make them globally available, he said.

Some is also for helping the poorest countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, which lack supplies, equipment and infrastructure to counter the new epidemic.

But the foundation has its focus on preparing for the creation of a vaccine that could effectively halt the spread of coronavirus.

Some 100 potential vaccines are being developed and tested by scientists around the world, Suzman said.

Many might appear hopeful in initial, small tests, he said, but most will fail in larger trials.

“A successful vaccine has to be available for 7 billion people. You need to test if there are unexpected side effects, or side effects within cohorts or groups, whether it’s pregnant women or the elderly or the very young,” said Suzman.

“The vast majority of vaccine candidates fail in those larger trials, the so-called phase-three trials.”

Fastest vaccine ever

But even as those trials take place, he said, there needs to be an international group of experts, countries and companies honing in on those with the most promise and preparing ahead of time to manufacture them.

He said both China and the United States have to be part of the joint effort, as well as the World Health Organization. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said he was cutting off US funds for the WHO.

“Clearly for us, the World Health Organization is a very strong, reliable partner,” Suzman said, noting the Gates Foundation is WHO’s second-largest source of funding after the US.

Earlier Wednesday, European Commissioner chief Ursula von der Leyen called a donors conference for May 4 to fund the creation and global deployment of a vaccine, calling it “our collective best shot at beating the virus.”

Suzman said the Gates Foundation is “reasonably optimistic” that one or more successful vaccines can be proven within 12 to 18 months.

“This will be the fastest vaccine ever developed in human history,” he said.

Yet getting the production going, he estimated, will cost several billion dollars.

Each vaccine finally approved will require its own manufacturing process, and if people don’t begin to prepare within months, a lot of time will be lost, he warned.

“There will be no return to ‘normal’ until there is a vaccine,” Suzman said. “But there are no dramatic ways to short-cut it.”

© Agence France-Presse

Coronavirus: I see dead bodies in the streets of Africa – Bill Gates’ wife

American philanthropist Melinda Gates has expressed worry over the possible effects on Africa of the coronavirus pandemic if and when it fully strikes in the continent as it has done in Asia, Europe and the United States of America.

Melinda Gates, who is the wife of one of the world’s richest men Bill Gates, in a recent CNN interview warned about the crisis facing the African continent. “Covid-19 will be horrible in the developing world”, she said, citing the failed healthcare and social systems in Africa.

For years Bill and Melinda Gates have, through their foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, been doing charity works in Africa and they have become a powerful catalyst for the improvement of lives in the world’s poorest countries.

The foundation’s trust endowment of $43.5bn (£29.5bn) makes grant payments in excess of $3bn every year ($3.9bn in 2014). Its focus has been on bridging the enormous health deficit between rich and poor countries and on fights it sees as vast, but ultimately winnable. Among its goals are the eradication of malaria and polio, and controlling the spread of tuberculosis and HIV.

But it is the Coronavirus disease that currently troubles the heart of Melinda Gates. “My heart is in Africa. I’m worried. The only reason why the reported cases of the coronavirus disease in Africa is low now is most likely because there have not been wide testing of people. The disease is going to bite hard on the continent. I see dead bodies in the streets of Africa,” Mrs. Gates said.

News Express