The race is on to find a safe, proven and effective coronavirus vaccine so that the world can go back to normal.
Research labs around the globe have been testing dozens (if not hundreds) of potential avenues and it's hoped we will have a vaccine by early next year.
However, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates reckons that we could have six vaccines in 2021, but only about three of them will be effective.
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Speaking to The Times of India, he said: "I would expect some of them will work very well. I think most of the world will want a vaccine that has been reviewed by a top notch regulator, which generally (is) US FDA or Europe or UK so ideally they would be involved.
"If we can get these western vaccines through partnerships, particularly with India, into high volume if we can get the money to procure them for even the poorest countries I think the western vaccines will be used overwhelmingly."
He's suggested that we should be working on a 'global vaccine' instead of dozens of individual ones. He believes a vaccine should be done by one company and then manufactured by other firms around the world.
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Mr Gates has also warned about the dangers of having countries like Russia and China get close to approving their Covid-19 vaccination for mass use.
Russia was about to have its citizens vaccinated against the virus after tests showed it was effective in eliminating the virus. However, there were some side effects noted and the country's scientists had to go back to the drawing board.
China meantime has announced it could have a coronavirus vaccine ready for use by November. .
Bill Gates is concerned these vaccines won't go through the regular approval process by Western regulators. If that happens, poorer countries might leap at the opportunity to get vaccinated without having a good knowledge of its effectiveness.
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He's hopeful it won't be too long before we give the coronavirus the boot.
"If we do a brilliant job, we end the pandemic in 2022 - if we are lucky to have a lot of good vaccines that are made in volume, I am sure the health system should be able to get back fairly quickly.
"We'll have to do catch up vaccination. But the economic damage - particularly in countries that couldn't borrow huge additional sums, like some of the rich countries - will have big setbacks. ...Some of the extreme poverty type things could take us five to ten years to get back to where we were at the start of 2020."
Topics: News, bill gates