Gates foundation to focus on finding coronavirus cure

Billionaire Bill Gates said his foundation will give its “total attention” to the Covid-19 pandemic and try to find a cure to put an end to the ongoing crisis.

According to the Financial Times, Gates said the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which has an endowment of more than $40bn, would focus on the disease since it could knock trillions off global economy.

“You’re going to have economies with greatly reduced activity levels for years,”Gates said.

“So-called ‘animal spirits’ are going to be hard to find, other than government largesse. We’re definitely in the tens [of trillions], which blows the mind. If you’d asked me six months ago, I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.”

The foundation already gave $250m to the Covid-19 response but it is set to commit further to the cause.

“We’ve taken an organisation that was focused on HIV and malaria and polio eradication, and almost entirely shifted it to work on this,” he said according to the FT. “This has the foundation’s total attention. Even our non-health related work, like higher education and K-12 [schools], is completely switched around to look at how you facilitate online learning.”

The Gates Foundation is reportedly committed to collaborate with the world’s other leading public health bodies, which agreed collectively on Friday to work together with the private sector under the auspices of the World Health Organisation.