Bill Gates says COVID-19 drugs should go where needed, not just the highest bidder

Microsoft founder Bill Gates said Saturday that drugs and a future vaccine to treat COVID-19 should go where they are most needed, not just to “the highest bidder,” Reuters reported.

“If we just let drugs and vaccines go to the highest bidder, instead of to the people and the places where they are most needed, we’ll have a longer, more unjust, deadlier pandemic,” Gates said (remotely) during a COVID-19 conference. “We need leaders to make these hard decisions about distributing based on equity, not just on market-driven factors.”

The World Health Organization said July 6th there were 21 candidate vaccines in clinical trials being tested on human volunteers. Public health experts have cautioned against “vaccine nationalism” —where...

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