Gates Warns: 10 Million Deaths as Virus Spreads to Africa

The Microsoft founder spoke at the AAAS meeting in Seattle just hours before the first case was confirmed in Cairo, Egypt

Bill Gates has warned that coronavirus in Africa could overwhelm health services and trigger a pandemic which could cause 10 million deaths.

The Microsoft founder and global health pioneer was speaking at the AAAS meeting in Seattle just hours before the first case was confirmed in Cairo, Egypt.

There are now fears that the disease could spread to sub-Saharan Africa where it could spark an uncontrollable outbreak, with health services unable to monitor or control the virus.

Mr Gates said: “I wanted to talk about a special topic, which is this recent coronavirus epidemic.

“This is a huge challenge,” Mr Gates said.

“We’ve always known that the potential for either a naturally caused or intentionally caused pandemic is one of the few things that could disrupt health systems, economies and cause more than 10 million excess deaths.”

Mr Gates pointed to advances in molecular diagnostic tools as one promising safeguard against such outbreaks.

“We’re on the cusp, in science, of being able to make good tools to do the diagnosis, provide vaccines to provide therapeutics including antivirals,” he said.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently committed $100 million to fighting coronavirus, as part of its broader efforts in global health.

“Our foundation is very engaged in terms of the relationships we have with governments and the private sector to orchestrate and provide resources and hopefully contain this epidemic,” he said. One of the big challenges, Mr Gates noted, is the infectious nature of coronavirus earlier in the cycle of the disease, impacting the general population. That’s in contrast with earlier challenges such as Ebola, which were more dangerous to health workers attempting to treat people who were sick.

Key questions, he said, are “will this get into Africa or not, and if so, will those health systems get overwhelmed?” Later, he added, “This disease, if it’s in Africa, is more dramatic than if it’s in China,” noting that he was “not trying to minimize what’s going on in China in any way.”

Margaret Hamburg, chair of the AAAS board of directors, cited the past outbreaks of diseases such as SARS and Ebola, and the cycle of “crisis, concern and then complacency,” that often follows them. She asked Gates what it will finally take to ensure that adequate preventative measures are in place.