The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a new $250 million donation on Thursday, adding to the foundation's total investment of $1.75 billion to fight COVID-19 through vaccine development and distribution.
Gates, who invested in vaccine technology in 2015, stressed the importance of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines that will end this pandemic and possibly any others that come in the future.
The United Kingdom was the first country to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech for COVID-19 and began distributing it on December 8.
The US is likely not far behind in approving a COVID-19 vaccine. On December 10, a US Food and Drug Administration advisory committee held a hearing on Pfizer's vaccine. Alex Azar, secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services , told ABC News that he is optimistic about the vaccine approval process
Gates said that citizens in other countries may not be so lucky and could potentially get the vaccine much later. “There are many countries that don’t have vaccine factories at all,” Gates said. “We want to stop the disease everywhere, so if someone really cares, they shouldn’t want vaccines to only go to the rich or to rich countries.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on December 9 that said the US would only distribute vaccine doses after "all Americans who choose to be vaccinated" are able to do so.
Gates said he hoped other billionaires would help fill global gaps in vaccine distribution.
"I always believe we could do more and we should give more," he told ABC News. "I hope in the future people will be even more generous."
