Billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates has put forth a rather ambitious strategy which he says, can be executed to prevent the next pandemic.

He has called in for a global alert system, massive testing, a cadre of 3,000 “first responders” ready for immediate response and tens of billions of dollars of annual spending.

In his annual letter, Gates says "To prevent the hardship of the last year from happening again, pandemic preparedness must be taken as seriously as we take the threat of war."

He goes on to say, "The world wasn’t ready for the COVID-19 pandemic. I think next time will be different.”

Seattle-based Gates Foundation whose operations are supervised by Bill and Melinda Gates, have engaged themselves in aiding in the global fight against COVID-19 virus, that has infected more than 100 million people.

According to Gates, “mega‐diagnostic platforms, which could test as much as 20% of the global population every week. The world needs to spend billions to save trillions". The overall cost to defend the world sounds huge, though not compared to the $28 trillion estimated cost of COVID-19, he adds.

In addition, he writes that the success of messenger RNA vaccines in combating COVID-19 should pave the way for huge advances over the next five years in the development of new vaccine doses.

According to Melinda Gates, one of the significant concerns is the threat of “immunity inequality," where only rich people have access to vaccines.

She goes on to say, " Until vaccines reach everyone, new clusters of disease will keep popping up,” she said. “Those clusters will grow and spread. Schools and offices will shut down again. The cycle of inequality will continue.”

Image courtesy: Business Today