I think one of the lessons is to ask whether we’re doing enough to prepare for these kinds of outbreaks.
distribute. The Ebola vaccine took five years, which was regarded as very fast, he pointed out.
Any vaccine would have to be effective for everybody, including people such as the elderly with different medical needs, children with their own requirements, and patients with pre-existing conditions.
“So 12-18 months is a floor, if we’re really lucky and if everything works perfectly. But it could be longer,” he said.
Berkley was recently reported as calling for a “vaccine tsar” to oversee the anti-virus effort, including the vaccine hunt.
But he emphasized that rather than putting one individual in charge of the international immunizations and deaths of health workers. We saw it in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where in the most recent Ebola outbreak 2.5 times the number of people died of measles than died of Ebola. There’s a huge risk this is going to happen,” he added.
“Some countries with big epidemics are scrambling to take care of their citizens, and that’s natural. But it’s also important in the G20 and G7 groups that they take a global view. With Saudi as G20 president, it’s a unique opportunity to take this global view,” Berkley said.
“I’ve had this conversation in the past with Saudi Arabia, which has been a big supporter of GAVI. If you’re worried about importation of yellow fever or meningitis by people who go on the Hajj, you may choose to vaccinate people coming on the Hajj, but the real way to control it is to stop epidemics in the countries those people came from.”
GAVI is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other philanthropic organizations, but it needs its resources “replenished” every five years, and national governments are a prime source of funding. Saudi Arabia contributed $25 million to the earlier financing round. A replenishment conference due to be held in the UK in
June was canceled because of the crisis, so Berkley — usually a “replenishment astronaut” but now locked down in the organization’s Swiss headquarters — is doing the virtual rounds of governments and other potential donors.
GAVI has set a target of at least $7.4 billion to fund its work until 2025. It is financially innovative, and has tailored financial instruments to the Middle East in the past, including a total of $750 million of sukuk — bonds that comply with Islamic law.
“The region is incredibly generous in terms of its charitable contributions, but this isn’t only charity, it’s also self-interest,” Berkley said.
“We want to make sure there aren’t raging epidemics anywhere, because they’d threaten the Middle East as well as the rest of the world.”